Educators across the Territory are engaged in a five-day CARICOM Teacher Standards Review workshop as the Government of the Virgin Islands continues to build resilience in the education system.

Deputy Premier and Minister for Education, Culture, Youth Affairs, Fisheries and Agriculture, Dr. the Honourable Natalio D. Wheatley, told educators during the opening ceremony that resilience is built by applying standards in education.

Honourable Wheatley said, “If we want to see a more prepared crop of teachers entering the profession, we need a teacher education programme with standards. These standards are suggested to be integrated in the recruitment strategy, the orientation and mentorship system, the evaluation process based on commitment, the licensing system, and the technology utilised in the classroom.”

Honourable Wheatley added that this will ensure equity and better learning outcomes in education.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Mrs. Carolyn Stoutt Igwe, while adding to the importance of the workshop, said the ministry must remain in the mode of transformation and that these standards must be designed to help transform the education sector with the rest of the region and the world.

Mrs. Stoutt Igwe said, “The CARICOM Standards for the Teaching Profession is an aspirational collection of statements of performance and value expectation for members of the teaching profession in the CARICOM region.”

The Permanent Secretary added that CARICOM has set the standards and that she is pleased to see other stakeholders outside of the public education system present at the workshop to help shape the Territory’s standards.

The workshop is being facilitated virtually by Programme Manager for Human Resource Development at the CARICOM Secretariat, Dr. Laurette Bristol.

The new CARICOM Standards for the Teaching Profession, Teachers, Educational Leaders and Teacher Educators was approved at the 38^th Meeting of the Council for Human and Social Development - Education in 2019. The workshop was scheduled for May, but was postponed due to the pandemic.

The Government of the Virgin Islands through the Ministry for Education, Culture, Youth Affairs, Fisheries and Agriculture remains committed to the professional development and training of the Territory’s teachers and education leaders based on internationally accepted models of best practice.