NCERD commenced Specialist Mathematics Teacher Training Programme

The programme is being hosted by National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD) in collaboration with the Government of Canada through the Canada Caricom Expert Employment Programme (CCEP). This is the first in-person technical assistance initiative in Guyana through CCEP, said Canadian High Commissioner Mark Berman, who offered that this is the first in many areas of expertise Canada can bring to Guyana to work with professionals in several sectors.

The programme aims to prepare primary school teachers to serve as Specialist Mathematics Teachers of the Number and Operations Strand of Grades One to Four curriculum and develop a repository of resources for them to utilise when planning their sessions.

Chief Education Officer, Dr Marcel Huston said the programme is transformative for primary education and when teachers examine the Ministry’s Strategic Plan 2021-2025 Vision 2030, they “will see that Mathematics is central to what we need to do in terms of reforming the school system for better results.”

Director of NCERD, Ms Quenita Walrond-Lewis said that the programme plays a significant part in the rollout of the renewed curriculum, while explaining the new Mathematics curriculum is guided by international best practices and is contextually prepared for Guyana.

Walrond-Lewis told the teachers this is “a new thing in primary mathematics education where we bring learning back to the hearts of children, back to play, back to pedagogy that requires us to be curious, experimental, ask questions and seek answers in ways that are endemic to the ways that children learn naturally which is through manipulation and experimenting implementation.”