The Acting Director of Education recently sat down for an interview with ZNS News where she gave an update on the efforts of the Ministry Of Education and Technical and Vocational Training to combat the shortage of teachers in the country.
Dominique McCartney-Russell said, “we are consistently interviewing persons for those positions and we are now in the recruitment stage. They are preparing now to identify where the needs are for the new school year and so we will be recruiting new teachers for the new school year but it is a consistent challenge. You could have someone start off in September and then they decide this is not for me and they resign. We keep a lift of our retirees, and we thank God for them, and they come and they assist us.”
The Acting Director also said there has been less teachers resigning recently. ”Our children deserve a good quality education and we’re really seeking to retain our teachers and we’ve been doing some things in that regard as well to try to retain them. I think over 140 young people who teachers have pulled in, recruited, and they will, by God’s grace, become our future teachers. And we connect with the University of The Bahamas to identify where there are shortages, in terms of the disciplines, so we know where we need to recruit and how we need to recruit.”
According to McCartney-Russell the area where teachers are most needed are Language Art, Mathematics, Physical Education and Science.
