Key education officials take part in webinar |20 November 2020

The Seychelles team attending the webinar (Photo: Thomas Meriton)

The Teacher Management and Development Technical Team of Seychelles held a webinar on Wednesday afternoon at the ministry’s headquarters.

It was organised jointly by the Unesco regional office for Eastern Africa and Unesco International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA).

The purpose of the webinar was for the Seychelles team to share its experience in the development and implementation process of its first Teacher Management and Development (TMD) policy to several African countries among which some are equally in the process of developing theirs.

The webinar saw the participation of Dr Odile De Comarmond, principal secretary for Early Childhood, Primary and Secondary Education of Seychelles; Alex Souffe, chief officer for Teacher Management and Development; Rosianna Jules, director of the Seychelles Institute for Teacher Education; Dr Ann Therese Ndong Jatta, director of Unesco regional office for Eastern Africa and Dr Yumiko Yokozeki, director of Unesco IICBA; Dr Marie Reine Hoareau, Seychelles secretary general of the National Commission for Unesco, among other ministry officials.

Speaking on behalf of the ministry, Dr de Commarmond said: “Seychelles has a comprehensive education system which provides access to eleven years of free compulsory education to children who are at school going age.”

She added that although much progress has been made in the education sector and all children have free access to education, the system is facing a number of challenges in terms of quality including issues such as pupils’ performance which is below the national target of grade C or better.

“There is also the mounting problem of ineffective teaching in the absence of a national teacher’s regulation,” she said.

The principal secretary also highlighted the fact that Seychelles is finding it difficult to attract young Seychellois with high academic background to the teaching sector.

“Presently there are 1700 primary and secondary teachers in the public education system, of whom 300 are non-Seychellois,” she said.

“As a ministry we are indeed very pleased to have been able to develop a teacher management development policy. This policy, which will be implemented in public schools as from January 2021, seeks to improve the quality of learning outcomes and make the education system more efficient. It provides a framework for the standardisation of the teaching profession,” said the PS.

The policy will provide a framework for the standardisation of the teaching profession in terms of recruitment, deployment, development and retention of teachers.

The TMD policy will focus on five thematics: teacher management and professional status, educational leadership and management, teacher empowerment, teacher professionalisation, and teacher development.

The TMD policy targets all teachers, processes and practices within the Ministry of Education and in all public, non-university educational institutions in Seychelles.

Christophe Zialor