Teacher Development in the Caribbean

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Book Cover: Teacher Development in the Caribbean

Teacher Development in the Caribbean showed that despite the impressive gains that were made in education in the Caribbean between the 1950s and the 1980s because of global political, economic and technological developments there was no celebration but instead governments across the region established mechanisms to reform their education systems. Task Forces, Working Groups, and Project Team carried out widespread consultations with stakeholders and actors before embarking on reforms. Teacher development became a priority not only because of the critical importance of teachers to education by because of the well-known perennial cycle of teacher bashing followed by teacher veneration common in the Caribbean.

Using the social criteria of ethnicity, gender, social class and occupational prestige five teaching occupations are identified in the Caribbean. Social changes in two of these occupations, public high school, and public primary school teachers, are traced over the last half of the twentieth century.

The Paper then proceeds to discuss teachers and teacher development in the Caribbean from the following perspectives:

  • Terms and conditions of service in relation to the governance of education systems
  • The structures of teaching occupations
  • School management using different models of school organisation
  • Eclectic practices, given the fact that Caribbean Education has been part of Western Education for more than 350 years.
  • Pre-service teacher education
  • In-service teacher education
  • Continuing professional development provided by Ministries of Education, teachers’ unions and NGOs.
  • Teacher supervision
  • Teacher evaluation
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