Approximately 15,000 educators from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) are set to benefit from professional development training designed for them to assist students in overcoming the learning losses occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic.
A release from CARICOM said that the training is part of the Learning Recovery and Enhancement Programme known as Let’s REAP, which was developed collaboratively among the CARICOM Secretariat, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). It was launched in July 2021.
The training programme was announced at a recent consultation in which senior education officials, national Let’s REAP focal points and representatives from the CARICOM Secretariat and CDB discussed the progress of implementation among other things.
Programme Manager for Human Resource Development within the CARICOM Secretariat, Dr Laurette Bristol said the implementing partners, in responding to the expressed needs for professional development training by the national focal points, reached out to the University of the West Indies’ (UWI) Joint Boards of Teacher Education to design a training programme in the areas identified.
Dr. Coreen Leacock, Academic Coordinator for the Eastern Caribbean Joint Board of Teacher Education, said the 45-hour course will concentrate on three core components of Let’s REAP: leadership and accountability, formative assessment, and communities of practice. To support sustainability of implementation across the region, the UWI Joint Boards of Teacher Education will collaborate with the teacher training institutions across the Region in rolling-out the programme.
