Learning at a Distance: Raising the Quality of Basic Education in Guyana

For some teachers in remote areas of Guyana, getting better at their jobs meant walking through the jungle or travelling by river for up to two days to reach their monthly tutorials. But they did so willingly. These teachers, mostly young women with families who live in Amerindian communities, were part of an innovative distance education program that enabled untrained basic education teachers to become qualified and trained.

Many teachers in Guyanese indigenous communities are not properly qualified because access to schooling is difficult and the quality of the education limited. Until now, the opportunity to upgrade their education was almost non-existent. In one district alone, more than 72 percent of the teachers were unqualified. They had neither completed secondary education, nor received teacher training. Not surprisingly, this also means that student achievement levels remained low.

Through an innovative program funded by CIDA and designed in close collaboration with the Guyanese Ministry of Education, teachers in remote regions of Guyana received the education they needed to obtain secondary school equivalency and, subsequently, their teaching certificate.

More than 1380 teachers and 1256 education managers have now upgraded their skills and received training. This means they are better equipped to improve low student achievement and increase the percentage of students who complete primary school in Guyana, and contribute to achieving the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education.

With assistance from the Quebec firm CRC Sogema, the Guyanese Teacher Training College developed and provided training modules in core subjects such as: English, practical science, history, social science, geography and mathematics. The modules contain study guides, work sheets, exercises and other support materials to help the teacher trainees master the required information and skills. They were sent to the trainees by planes, boats and trucks. The trainees worked through the materials on their own and then once a month, travelled to a regional Learning Resource Centre for face-to-face tutorials. There were between 4 and 10 tutors per subject. As well, mentors in each community were chosen to support and encourage trainees.

Jan Draper, the program's field manager, said the distance education program started an upward spiral within local communities by creating more opportunities, which subsequently increased the desire for more education.

"The support for the program was tremendous," says Draper. "In some villages, community members even took over the classes when trainees made their monthly treks to the regional centres."

In addition to working full time, the teachers had to sacrifice time with their families to do the training - up to two and a half years for the equivalency program and another two for the teaching certificate.

Still, the spirit was strong in the group since, as one enthusiastic participant noted, the program "brought something that was once rare to our community" - the prospect of a better life without leaving home.

Research has demonstrated that schools with teachers trained through this project had better learning outcomes than other remote schools and in some cases exceeded national results.

To find out more, consult the project profile in Project Browser, the most complete source of information about CIDA-funded projects.