60 Cuban teachers to cover shortages

As of Monday, February 24, 2020

By EARYEL BOWLEG

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

THE Ministry of Education will engage 60 specialist teachers from Cuba to address a local teacher shortage, officials said on Friday.

Ministry officials signed an extension to an existing memorandum of understanding with the Cuban government, which allows the Bahamian government to hire teachers from Cuba.

A team, headed by Ministry of Education Permanent Secretary Serethea Clarke, will head to Cuba for a recruitment exercise from March 14-21.

Marcellus Taylor, director of education, said the ministry plans to recruit the Cuban teachers for areas such as agricultural science, auto mechanics, biology, chemistry, electrical installation, mathematics, Spanish and French.

Mr Taylor said the ministry has faced challenges with recruiting and retaining teachers. When asked if the ministry will still be facing shortages despite bringing in more foreign teachers, he explained that the number of teachers is not the problem, rather it is the lack of teachers for certain subjects.

“You can have the number of persons that you need,” he said on Friday, “but some may not be in the discipline that you require. So for instance if we need 3,000 teachers in our system we can get 3,000 persons, but if we need 100, let’s say, welding teachers or auto mechanic teachers, we may only have 50 and that is where the challenge often comes.”

He said some in the profession leave the public school system for more lucrative or prestigious employment opportunities.

Along with the areas requested for Cuban teachers to fill, he noted graphic communications, nautical science and marine science, technical drawing and people who can work with braille are scarce. He highlighted Cubans’ willingness to teach in rural areas whereas Bahamians are hesitant to make those moves.

“I can’t say that it’s always the case with Bahamians because we have a situation where even new graduates who are not married and don’t have any children when they come out of college and we say to them that we have a spot for you, but the spot is in a rural area, sometimes they don’t even take up the appointment anymore,” Mr Taylor said. “They say, no, they’re gonna go somewhere else and that’s their right and that’s their choice, but we would like people to realise that we have a country of islands and we have a commonwealth and we should have the mindset that even if you do it for a few years, you know two to three years, you should want to help to some degree to build the country.”

sheeprunner12 4 years, 2 months ago

The Government of The Bahamas is complicit in Cuban official institutional slavery ……… while their own UB trained teachers cannot get hired due to "vetting" ……. Lord help us all.

TheMadHatter 4 years, 2 months ago

Yep. This "vetting" thing is taken to an insane level. It is beyond what is needed.

And...yes....perhaps....it is simply used as a tool to keep Bahamians out of teaching - like they are kept out of everything else.

Clamshell 4 years, 2 months ago

Cuban auto mechanics teachers? The cars in Cuba are early ‘60s vintage models from the U.S.!

bogart 4 years, 2 months ago

Will the govt be teaching Agriculture students to use oxen to plow fields, oxen to pull carts how to change the wheels on the ox carts???

TalRussell 4 years, 2 months ago

Makes sense be taught in Spanish by a comrade Cuban speaking Spanish teacher - but should you find yourself traveling Cuba and you have heart issues - you probably wouldn't want be mistakenly plugging in - say - you're heart's portable electrical medical recharging device into hotel room's 220v AC** wall socket?

K4C 4 years, 2 months ago

WOW

Have a Canadian born child with Bahamians citizenship who is a teacher with 25 years plus experience, guess what, she was declined for a position as a teacher

Chucky 4 years, 2 months ago

This just after Minnis said work permits only if a Bahamian can’t do the job

So what’s the problem, we gots nobody to teach, or our teachers ain’t no good?

Look at the d average nation stats and make our own guess

joeblow 4 years, 2 months ago

The women will all be pregnant or married within the next 6 months!

OMG 4 years, 2 months ago

These officials should hang their heads in shame. Firstly the last MOE director and deputy director told employed teachers in subjects such as auto, electrical due to retire thay they could work for another 5 years after retirement. Lies, when the previous D Director went to Cuba to hire teachers in one case to replace a family teacher with proven results,. not only did this teacher not get the courtesy of a response for his request for extended employment his replacement was knowingly hired as a teacher who had never taught that subject before. Tell me how it is more cost effective to pay all the costs with hiring a Cuban when you have established teachers with their own houses on the family islands. Consider that some of these Cuban teachers have an extremely poor grasp of speaking English and in some cases really don't have the students interests in the forefront. Lets face it Cubans put as little money as possible into the local economy preferring to save and buy as much stuff as possible to take back to Cuba. It takes a foreign teacher in many cases years to understand the kids, culture etc etc and as they are on contracts their is little motivation to fully integrate. Why not apprentice the brightest students from BTVI to work alongside an experienced teacher. This would employ a young Bahamian and their must be a way of these apprentices doing summer courses at COB. Teacher training gives you the theory but doesn't necessarily make you an effective teacher. This nonsense will go on for years if wr don't get outward thinking, competant Directors and their underlings. Why is the BUT not getting involved and fighting hard to find a long term solution ? .

Well_mudda_take_sic 4 years, 2 months ago

Got to hand it to Minnis. He loves everything foreign, e.g. illegal Haitian aliens, deep pocket foreign investors, low-cost Red Chinese construction workers, Peruvian and Filipino maids for the Lyford Cay community, low-cost Cuban teachers, and so on and so forth. Meanwhile his failed policies are perpetuating our very dysfunctional D- public education system that for the most part produces essentially illiterate Bahamians who no one wants to hire, not even himself. My oh my, what an evil, arrogant and nasty monster we have as PM.

proudloudandfnm 4 years, 2 months ago

Cuban teachers for auto mechanics?????

Um.. Why? We don't need mechanics with experience in 50s cars....

Cuban teachers in our school systems? Thick Cuban accents speaking to students who have no concept of the English language....

Yeah. That D average is about to go down to a D-.....

This is just dumb...

banker 4 years, 2 months ago

Just like when the Cuban doctors came here several years ago. I met one at the Green Parrot. He told me that his family was not allowed to join him, even though he had young kids, so that he wouldn't defect and leave Cuba for good. The person who called this institutional slavery in the above comments was spot on. It is a way for the Cuban government to get hard currency by slaving out their population.

sheeprunner12 4 years, 2 months ago

These Ministers of Education have NO vision ……. just 5 year brownie point projects so that they can brag about it at the rallies ….. The whole obsolete 1970s system needs to be scrapped and retooled ……. $300 million and still most students are either quitting or finishing school labelled as "functionally illiterate"???? …….. Most students still cannot even meet the diploma criteria ............… if Graduation is based on 4 BJCs with D, we are really setting the bar LOW ……. MOE is covering up a lot of crap.

proudloudandfnm 4 years, 2 months ago

Actually in the 70s we were on the British system, we need that back. We need to get rid of this Bahamian government system and go back to actual educating...

Nothing the Bahamian government does is worthwhile, it is all 100% garbage.,..

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