2.4 Teachers

In Trinidad and Tobago, primary school teachers are generally secondary school graduates who may or may not have been trained at a teachers' college. Table 2.2 provides data on the number of teachers employed in public primary schools in the academic year 1996/97, by classification and gender. Of the 7,311 teachers employed at this level, 5,665 (77.5%) were trained teachers. From a gender perspective, although the ratio of the total number of female teachers to male teachers is 2.8:1, the ratio of female to male vice-principals is only 1.7:1, and that of female principals to male principals is lower yet at 1.1:1. The gender composition of the administration of primary schools does not, therefore, adequately reflect the gender composition of the teaching staff, with female administrators being under-represented.

Table 2.2. Numbers of Trained and Untrained Teachers in Primary Schools, 1996

The distribution of enrolments and teachers between school types at the primary level for 1996 is shown in Table 2.3 along with data on pupil-teacher ratios, average school size and average number of teachers per school.

Most pupils are in government and Roman Catholic schools. Pupil-teacher ratios are fairly uniform across the school types and averaged 24:1 in 1996. Primary schools generally have 300-400 pupils and an average of 14 teachers.

Table 2.3. Enrolments by School Type - Primary, 1996

At the secondary level, there are differences in teachers' qualifications among different types of schools. Secondary schools generally have a mix of teachers: some are university graduates with a degree in a certain subject specialty (known as graduate teachers), who may or may not have received pedagogical training; some hold diplomas and certificates from non-university, tertiary institutions, with or without pedagogical training; and others are secondary school graduates who may or may not have been trained in a teachers' college (known as non-graduate teachers). In 1995, 3,148 of the 4,995 secondary school teachers (63.0%) held university degrees; only 2,557 of them (51.2%) were professionally trained. The junior secondary schools had the lowest percentage of graduate teachers (601 out of 1,303, or 46.1%), whereas the older, government-assisted schools had the highest percentage of teachers who were university graduates (767 out of 931, or 82.4%). On the other hand, junior secondary schools had the highest percentage of trained teachers (911 out of 1,303, or 69.9%).

These patterns are due to the ways in which teachers were recruited into the different types of secondary schools in the past. Many junior secondary teachers were once trained primary school teachers who upgraded their academic qualifications through short courses, and gained employment in the higher-paying secondary sector. Some, but not all, went on to acquire university degrees. On the other hand, in the government-assisted secondary schools (and the government secondary schools), the main criterion for employment as a teacher is often the possession of a university degree. Many teachers enter these schools without professional training, and only some take advantage of the opportunity to acquire such training through the post-graduate, in-service Diploma in Education programme at UWI.