Harmonised Policy Framework for Teacher Education in the Caribbean

Background
One of the outputs of the first year of the OAS project Responses to the challenge of  improving the quality of recruitment and selection, initial formation, professional development and evaluation of teachers in countries of the hemisphere, is policy development. In particular the following targets were specified:

1. Policy for teacher education
2. Framework for teacher education programs
3. Recruitment and selection policies

There were a number of activities geared to facilitating the attainment of these targets. In the Caribbean sub-region among the major activities in this regard were two workshops held in November/December 2004. Teacher educators and Ministry of Education officers with responsibility for teacher education came together in Port of Spain, Trinidad, to identify best practices and to develop competencies and professional standards that would form the basis of a harmonized policy for teacher education in the sub-region. A follow-up 2-day workshop was held in The Bahamas in April 2005 to complete the validation of these outputs. A second major activity was the completion of the on-line questionnaire which was intended to facilitate the development of the Status of Teacher Education country reports. These reports had originally been intended to inform the workshop activities, however the poor response to this initiative frustrated this intention. The outputs from the workshops represent the fruits of shared experiences, discussion and dialogue among teacher  ducation professionals in the effort to provide a frame work for policies to improve the quality of recruitment and selection, initial formation, professional development and evaluation of teachers in Caribbean States.