Early childhood experts praise teacher assistants for job well done |19 August 2019

The two lecturers

A group of 99 teacher assistants in early childhood education (crèche, P1 and P2) have been praised for their good performance during a two-week training on early childhood education.

The training was organised by the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development and was facilitated by two lecturers from the Singaporean SEED Institute based in Singapore, Beth Frederick and Irene Tan who are experts in early childhood education and development.

Both commended the teacher assistants participating in the training for their enthusiasm, effort and progress and further congratulated them for successfully achieving the Professional Certificate in Early Childhood Care.

The training wrapped up on Friday whereby guests were invited for a gallery walk to view the various portfolios and presentations that the participants had prepared over the two-week period.

Although not on a full certificate level, the Professional Certificate in Early Childhood Care has been certified and validated by the Seychelles Qualifications Authority (SQA).

The last time that teacher assistants received in-depth training dates back to more than ten years ago in 2005.

With six modules to cover and an assessment after completion of each of these modules, the participants had much on their plate but Ms Tan noted that the participants were robust and very passionate to learn.

“At first they were quite unsure; they were consistently seeking advice from us and we reassured them that they actually do know, they just needed to have more confidence.

“As we progressed, their confidence grew and we saw such a big transformation. Both of us are really, really happy for them because we never expected these ten days to result into such a metamorphosis; like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. That really blew our minds,” Ms Tan highlighted.

She further noted that the teacher assistants have now been equipped with the abilities to make a difference with their small students particularly since they have managed to have gained a better understanding of SELF (Seychelles Education Learning Framework).

SELF which was launched by the Ministry of Education in 2015 is a framework which serves as a guide to support early childhood programmes for children aged 0-7 years old and was fully integrated into the modules of this training.

Prior to the training, most of the teacher assistants were unaware of SELF and how to effectively implement the framework in day-to-day teaching and learning.

On her part, Ms Frederick remarked that it is very smart and forward-thinking of the Seychelles government to invest in the teacher assistants.

“The Seychelles government is very smart to start at this level because these teacher assistants had no training whatsoever and all the research says that in order to provide quality care, you need some training. So I am not surprised that their enthusiasm for this was so high. But most countries would not invest at this level, they think that their workforce is lacking in the higher levels; they think that they need head teachers, principals and people to run the sector. But Seychelles was very smart because out of this 99, I bet half of them were inspired and have built their confidence enough to want to reach for the higher levels and that is what you really need.”

Indeed, the principal secretary for education Odile De Commarmond explained that her department is working towards identifying teacher assistants who have the capabilities to become fully-fledged primary teachers.

“We have around 246 teacher assistants and at various points they have requested for training because they felt they were not progressing career wise, “PS De Commarmond noted.

Through this training, along with future trainings at the Seychelles Institute of Teacher Education (Site), the education department is hoping to build their necessary competencies and improve quality of education in early childhood.

Marie-Cecile Nzewi, an assistant teacher at Perseverance North Primary, stated that she is ready to bring her newly acquired skills and knowledge to her P1 class when school starts in September.

“I found that I was not giving my students enough opportunities to communicate and express themselves. Often we would hush them and tell them to sit down but we learnt that sometimes we are not allowing them to fully express themselves.”

The teacher assistants will receive their certificates later on this year but, aside from gaining knowledge, it is clear that the teacher assistants have created a strong network of peers ready to help one another.