Dear Editor,

In response to Olato Sam’s letter captioned ‘Teachers need training on contemporary classroom management techniques’ (08.02.22) please note that The Caribbean Voice, in collaboration with the VSO had planned a two week training programme scheduled for summer last year but that the Ministry of Education pulled the plug at the last minute. The planning process responded to every demand made and we were extremely shocked when we were told mere days before the programme was scheduled to begin that it had been cancelled apparently because we had not provided a training manual that was supposed to cross every ‘t’ and dot every ‘i’.

The fact is that we provided a breakdown of each session based on a rubric provided by the education authority (with changes made and details added on a continual basis per request), we tailored the programme to meet the classroom realities of the typical school in Guyana and we also undertook to secure funding for all required training materials. Thus we could not understand the demand for something that was redundant and would have required eons of time and effort to put together especially given that we were volunteering our services for this programme.

For the record please note that myself and Dr Latchman Narain (co-coordinator of the programme) still stand willing to work along with the VSO, the Ministry of Education and/or any other entity to voluntarily plan and implement a training programme on Contemporary Classroom Management Techniques.

Yours faithfully,

Annan Boodram