The Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) is now offering a Distance Education (DE) Secondary Academic Certificate Programme in addition to its DE Early Childhood and Primary Certificate programmes.

In a press release, CPCE said the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) through the Guyana Basic Education Teacher Training Project (GBET) provided technical support and funding for these three programmes. This Project, now in its 10th year was extended in 2007 to develop and pilot the DE secondary programme for CPCE.

CPCE began this programme on Monday at three of its in-service centres located at Vreed-en-Hoop, Rose Hall and in Georgetown. To date 131 persons have enrolled.

The 72 DE modules for this programme were written by teacher educators drawn from CPCE, the University of Guyana and the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. The writing of the modules started in July 2008.

The release said that in preparation for the writing local module writers participated in training workshops on the writing of distance education materials, gender equality and quality assurance mechanisms in distance programmes. The consultants who facilitated the workshops were Dr Janice Jackson and Dr Nancy George. Professor Zellynne Jennings, Director of the School of Education at the Mona Campus, developed the blueprint and criteria for certification for the Programme.

The release said Canada is proud of the success of the DE teacher training initiatives which are executed on CIDA’s behalf by Canadian Executing Agency CRC SOGEMA. These initiatives have been fully supported by the Ministry of Education through its ongoing investment of human, material and financial resources. “This support has undoubtedly improved teacher training systems across Guyana, especially in the hinterland Regions of 1, 7 and 9 where eight CPCE in-service centres, established by GBET and now fully sustained by the MOE, are offering DE Early Childhood and Primary Teacher Training Programmes,” the release said. CPCE intends to use this programme to chart the way forward in introducing it to the hinterland regions.