Page images
PDF
EPUB

tion to serving as the vehicle for professional training, are assisting those attending to obtain this evidence of achievement in academic education. This function will, of course, become of less importance as the percentage of those entering Training College who already possess a School or GCE certificate increases.

Professional Training

Professional training for teachers in elementary schools is normally given in so-called Training Colleges, after a certain standard of achievement in general education has been demonstrated. Usually, also, a minimum period of a year or two of teaching service has been required for entrance into a Training College, and the majority, who have come to the Training College through the pupil-teacher system, will have had more. As the pupil-teacher system is gradually modified, this situation will presumably change, as already evidenced by the fact that it is possible in some cases for those who have a good School Certificate or General Certificate of Education to be admitted into Training College without prior teaching experience. Due to the shortage of Training College facilities for all teachers, admission has historically been on a selective basis, and there generally are upper age limits for admission to the regular programs. The academic requirements have been indicated in the previous section. It is largely because of the limited facilities and opportunities to attend Training College that the previously described practices relating to professional study, training, and examinations in the External Training of Teachers arose and remain an important part of the training system in most territories. This situation is especially prevalent in the Windward Islands, which have no Training College facilities of their own.

Trends in the British Caribbean in this area of activity include, as indicated, recognition of the need for all teachers in elementary schools to receive full professional training, and the beginnings of improvement and expansion of facilities for this purpose. In 1957 it was estimated that in no territory of the area did the ratio of professionally, i.e., college-trained teachers reach 50 percent. In Jamaica and Trinidad the figure was about 45 percent; in Antigua, 40 percent; in Barbados, 25 percent; in the Leeward Islands other than Antigua about 20 percent; in British Guiana, 17 percent; and the Windward Islands, less than 10 percent. There was a rough correlation between these percentages and the availability of Training College facilities in a given territory. At that time the regular Training Colleges of the area offering full length courses of 2 years

6 Teacher Training Conference Report, p. 8 and 46.

(except for Jamaica where the course was 3 years in length) were

[blocks in formation]

Roman Catholic Training College for women, 40 students.

Naparima Training College, Canadian Presbyterian Mission, for 60 men and women."

Recommendations of the 1957 Regional Conference on the Training of Teachers called on Governments during the ensuing 10-year period to "direct their efforts to giving at least two-thirds of all teachers either a two- or three-year course, or an emergency one-year course, in a training college," and made specific suggestions looking to the improvement of the situation in individual territories.8 Among them were recommendations that arrangements should be continued as an interim measure for teachers from the Windward and Leeward Islands to be trained at Erdiston College in Barbados, and that the problem of the Windward Islands, with less than 10 percent of its teachers trained, should be a subject of consultation among the Governments of the immediate area and should be referred to the Federal Education Adviser.

Plans for at least two new Training Colleges in the area have materialized in the past few years. Trinidad, as part of its 5-Year Development Programme, began in 1959 construction of a new Government Teachers Training College for some 200 students. The Governments of the Leeward Islands opened a new Training College at Golden Grove, just outside St. Johns, Antigua,

7 Ibid., p. 45.

8 Ibid., p. 9-10.

early in 1959, and the Spring Gardens College was closed down. One of the recommendations of the 1957 Conference on Teacher Training had been that the Leeward Island Governments should consider the expansion of Spring Gardens. The Governments came to the conclusion that a College on a new site would be preferable. The new College began with an enrollment of 30 men and women (the same number as Spring Gardens), with plans to expand to 60 as additional facilities were constructed on the site. It was planned to take advantage of the rural setting by expanding teacher-training programs in rural sciences, home economics, natural sciences, and history and geography in their Caribbean setting and application. The new College takes students from all the Leeward Islands and from Dominica in the Windwards, which all contribute to its support. Those who complete the 2-year course and the concluding examinations, or successfully take the examinations externally, receive the highest Leeward Island Teachers Certificate of competency permitting them to teach anywhere in the Leeward Islands.

Another recent development in meeting the need for trained teachers is the 1-year emergency training program, which has been introduced in most of the territories having training facilities. The institution of the program is a recognition of the need for special measures to meet the rapid growth of the school population and to make a sizeable reduction in the percentage of untrained teachers in the area. This was one of the subjects considered at the 1957 Conference on Teacher Training. That body, while agreeing in principle that the Training College course of study should be at least 2 years in length, recommended that in the circumstances Governments should consider the possibility of instituting, as an emergency measure, 1-year courses at a Training College.

The experience of the area's first 1-year emergency program, then already underway at Moneague Training College in Jamaica, was one of the major considerations in influencing Conference and subsequent areawide thinking in this connection. The Moneague program was initiated as an experiment in 1956 with the objective of training annually 100 in-service teachers. The results of the program were such that it was continued in 1957, and the third group of 100 teachers was receiving training in 1958-59. Generally speaking, these have been selected groups of experienced teachers, all with at least 1-year of external professional study behind them. The 1-year curriculum has emphasized professional subjects and training rather than academic subjects. The enthusiasm of those admitted to this program has been especially noticeable. For most of them, who were overage to enter the regular 3-year training

APPENDIX B

The Percentages of College-Trained Teachers in Primary and All-Age Schools at Present and Forecast at 1965

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][subsumed][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

program and could not in any case afford that much time from their teaching career and their family and personal responsibilities as adults, it represented a previously unforeseen opportunity and a "last chance" to attend a training college.

Since the 1957 Conference, 1-year emergency programs, or plans for such programs, have been initiated elsewhere. A second emergency Training College was set up in Jamaica in 1959. In Trinidad a separate training college was established in 1958 to train 150 teachers a year in such a program, in addition to the three Training Colleges offering the regular 2-year program. As at Moneague in Jamaica, most of those receiving such training were women, with greater teaching experience and maturity than those in the 2-year program, and they exhibited the same enthusiastic response.

In British Guiana, with its one training college, plans were announced in 1958 to convert the 2-year training program indefinitely into a 1-year emergency program beginning in 1959. It is to be noted that the 1957 Conference on Teacher Training had recommended that British Guiana "should increase still further the planned expansion of its training college, if necessary by establishing one-year courses." Likewise, the Conference recommended the expansion of Erdiston College in Barbados in the same manner, and in 1958-59 plans were being formulated for the initiation of a 1-year emergency course. The Training College in Antigua was also considering in 1958-59 the establishment of such a program.

The situation in 1957 with respect to the percentage of collegetrained teachers in elementary schools, as well as a forecast of the situation for 1965 as visualized at that time, can be seen in the chart on the adjoining page. Plans for 1-year emergency training programs instituted since that time, as well as other factors, may have the result of increasing the percentage of college-trained teachers forecast.

Secondary Teachers

The foregoing discussion has been concerned with the preparation and training of teachers for elementary schools. As to the preparation and training of teachers for the traditional secondary schools, the ideal situation has generally been regarded as one where the teacher has an undergraduate, or Bachelor's, degree from a university in his subject specialty, plus a so-called Diploma in Education, representing an additional year's professional study and training in preparation for secondary school teaching. As taken in British universities, this 1-year program is somewhat similar to undergraduate courses in education taken in American universities by prospective teachers. The usual program of preparation for

9 Teacher Training Conference Report, p. 9.

« PreviousContinue »