426 educators engaged under specialist teacher model
THE Ministry of Education and Youth has engaged 426 educators under its specialist teacher model.
The initiative is being implemented in phases 1a and 1b, among 288 and 138 teachers, respectively.
Phase two will get under way in September 2022 with 186 teachers, while phase three will be implemented in 2023 with 157 teachers.
This was disclosed by Portfolio Minster Fayval Williams, during the sitting of the House of Representatives on January 11.
She said the subject areas covered under the initiative include mathematics and science; language arts and social studies; language arts and Spanish; music; drama and visual arts; civics; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)/resource and technology.
“We are transitioning away from the days of one teacher in a primary school classroom teaching all subjects. We have taken steps to begin implementation of the specialist-teacher model. This is one of our flagship initiatives this school year and we expect it to significantly raise the level of all mentioned subject areas, thus reducing the knowledge inequity in the education sector,” Williams said.
In addition, on February 1, 2022, the ministry will commence its extra lesson/homework programme to provide additional learning support and individual learning interventions to students based on their diagnostic and internal assessment reports.
“We have trained our teachers in differentiated learning, and we have deployed our technical officers — curriculum specialists, literacy and language coaches/specialists, maths coaches, among others to provide support to the learning programmes in our schools,” Williams said.
In the meantime, schools were provided with nutritional grants to provide students on the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH) with a cooked meal each day.
The ministry has also intensified its psychosocial support programme to help staff and students to cope with the emotional demands of the pandemic.