How can developing countries identify potential teachers? Can they be trained and inducted into teaching within a working school environment? How do teachers trained on-the-job fit into education systems predominantly staffed by college-trained teachers who may have no training in acting as mentors?

A study by the University of the West Indies explores these questions in a review of Trinidad and Tobago’s innovative On-the-Job Training (OJT) Pre-Service Teaching Training Programme. Despite certain limitations, the programme is making a positive impact on the preparedness of young, untrained teachers for the classroom.

The OJT scheme emerged in 1993 out of a recommendation from a national symposium to tackle Trinidad and Tobago's high unemployment rate. It was developed as part of a national apprenticeship scheme to provide working experience for young people. Potential primary school teachers have typically taught for 2-3 years in primary schools before being admitted to one of the country’s teachers’ colleges. The OJT programme is used to provide some measure of pre-service training for prospective primary school teachers.

The project is implemented by tutors, who are all graduate specialist teachers, principals who supervise trainees for 9-12 months and mentor teachers. They, like the trainees receive a modest stipend. In addition to in-school mentoring, trainees attend an induction segment during the July/August holidays, Saturday classes, a computer literacy course and a holiday course on teaching art, craft, music and drama.

In recent years around 300 trainee teachers have graduated from the OJT programme and future employment in education is anticipated, although not guaranteed. Individuals who have not taken part in the programme continue to be appointed as untrained teachers in schools. However, principals find that OJT trainees ask more intelligent and relevant questions about the job than teachers who have been appointed to the school without exposure to the programme.

Further findings from the review are:

• Trainees feel more confident to teach after classroom exposure and find the lessons learnt from hands-on experience invaluable.
• The system is not operating as efficiently as it might, due to lack of proper co-ordination among its various components and under-staffing.
• The programme is under-funded and the amount of money allocated to it is decreasing. Tutors' stipends are minimal and trainees' stipends are often not paid on time.
• Mentoring and monitoring are key ingredients of the programme and there are signs of increasing collaboration between personnel. But mentor teachers receive no formal training and there are no official criteria as to who should qualify.
• Most of the trainees who expressed dissatisfaction were unhappy with their interaction with mentor teachers.
• There is no official link between the OJT and teachers’ college programmes and participation in OJT is not a pre-requisite for entry into the teachers’ colleges.

Education policymakers planning such pre-service programmes should consider:

• the ongoing financial and personnel requirements necessary for a programme to function efficiently and effectively
• using computer databases to enable data from the programme to be evaluated and used to inform policy decision
• formalising links with other teacher training initiatives
• introducing formal training for mentor teachers and monitors and encouraging closer collaboration between mentors and tutors.

Source(s):
'On-the-Job Training: Pre-service Teacher Training in Trinidad and Tobago', MUSTER Discussion Paper 19, Centre for International Education, University of Sussex, by J. George, J. Fournillier and M. Brown, 2000

Funded by: Department for International Development, UK

id21 Research Highlight: 20 June 2002

Further Information:
June George
School of Education
The University of the West Indies
St Augustine Campus
Trinidad and Tobago
West Indies

Tel: +1 (868) 662 2002 x2211
Fax: +1 (868) 662 6615
Contact the contributor: junemgeorge@yahoo.com

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'Costing teacher education in Ghana: micro realities and macro contexts'

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