Teachers Union Meets with Education Ministry to Address CPD Hours and Staffing Issues

The Ministry of Education and the Belize National Teachers Union (BNTU) met yesterday to iron out several issues faced by Belizean educators. Education Minister Francis Fonseca and his CEO Dian Maheia discussed a range of pressing matters with the union’s President Nadia Caliz and her team. Two salient points of the conversation surrounded the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) hours and a shortage of teachers in schools in the Belize District. Several educators have argued that obtaining the requisite CPD hours is not feasible and is leading teachers to leave the profession. Today. Fonseca spoke about the importance of the meeting and the need for the two to work together to enhance the education sector.

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education: “We had a very good meeting yesterday with the Belize National Teachers Union where we discussed this matter extensively. Continuous professional development, and the union fully supports this, is critically important to the quality of education so there’s no compromising on continuous professional development. Now can we look at a more effective method of carrying out CPDs and licensing ? Absolutely and we’re prepared to do that in consultation with education stakeholders like the BNTU. So it’s a very important issue. We’re working on it along with other stakeholders like the BNTU. But as I said earlier there’s no shortage of teachers in Belize. There’s an as I pointed out inequitable allocation so we have a lot of teachers in other districts who don’t for personal reasons don’t want to come to Belize City and teach and that’s an issue we’re addressing in a very meaningful way. So I would leave it at that.”

Fonseca added that the parties are also working to pass several teaching license applications that were incomplete.