‘No mass migration of teachers’ – Manickchand says some schools ‘overstaffed’

Education Minister Priya Manickchand revealed on Friday that the teaching profession’s workforce has grown from about 10,000 in 2020 to 15,000.

Minister Manickchand, during a review of the education sector for 2024, shared some positive trends in teaching , such as a growing interest in the profession.

“We don’t have as a record any mass movement of teachers. Every year teachers retire, every year teachers resign and every years teachers unfortunately die, and we are not seeing any rise in those numbers,” Manickchand said as she responded to questions about teachers migrating to overseas countries.

Instead, the minister noted that some teachers had migrated to countries like the Bahamas for better opportunities but have since returned to work in the education system in Guyana.

“What we are finding is that people actually broke their contracts and so on to go and teach and they are [overseas] because they offered better conditions and so on. And then they come back and say, ‘look we are sorry we left we want to connect back our service, how can we do that, we are seeing that,” Manickchand stated.

With the successful growth in the teaching sector, Minister Manickchand said this reflects positive changes in the sector.

“I also have people from health who want to come over to teaching, we have people who want to leave other administrative public servants post to come over to teach, and now they can train online while they work, they are actually doing that,” she explained.

One major incentive she said, is the significant increase in trainee teacher stipends. Previously, trainees received less than $10,000 monthly, but now they earn the salary of a starter teacher, which is about $100,000.

“This is very attractive for people,” Manickchand said.

Manickchand also added that less than 100 non-graduate teachers resigned in 2024.

Meanwhile, Chief Education Officer Saddam Hussein revealed that more than the majority of the schools on the coast are overstaffed.

“On the coast, more than 75 per cent of the schools that we have are currently overstaffed. So, the Ministry of Education over the last two months have had to engage in a significant rationalization of staffing on the coast,” Hussein said.