The Caribbean Centre of Excellence for Teacher Training (Caribbean CETT) will host its first Teacher of the Year Awards Dinner on Tuesday, July 18 at 7.00 p.m. at the Sunset Jamaica Grande Resort and Spa, Ocho Rios. Ambassador of the United States of America to Jamaica, Mrs. Brenda Johnson, will be the guest speaker.
Thirteen exemplary teachers in the Caribbean CETT Project for 2005 will be honoured at the function. The teachers from across the Caribbean have been selected based on performance, from the over four hundred teachers involved in the project in five Caribbean countries.
Awards for the Teacher of the Year for Grades 1, 2 and 3 respectively are being donated by Scholastic Inc., the largest publisher and distributor of children’s books in the United States, Pearson Publications and Book Merchant Limited.
The Caribbean CETT is a part of a US $20 Million, U.S. Presidential Initiative announced at the Summit of the Americas, in Quebec on April 2001 to establish three Centres for Excellence in Teacher Training, to be housed in existing institutions in the Caribbean, the Andean region of South America, and Central America. UWI, through the Joint Boards of Teacher Education (JBTE), is the primary partner in implementing this Initiative for the Caribbean.
These regional teacher training and resource centres seek to improve teacher and school administrator quality, with a focus on early instruction in the classroom throughout the hemisphere. It is also anticipated that CETT will also place a special emphasis on poorer countries, and on helping teachers who work in disadvantaged communities. About 15,000 teachers will benefit from this training over four years.