The teachers have been certified as competent to incorporate ICTs into the teaching/learning process. More than 800 teachers have received training so far.
Addressing the 140 teachers last Friday, director of technology in the Office of the Prime Minister, Gary Campbell said ICTs provide a window of opportunity for educational institutions and other organisations to harness and use technology to complement and support the teaching and learning process.
"E-learning is an example of the use of these ICT-supported teaching and learning methods whose use in educational institutions is gaining momentum with the passage of time," Campbell said.
He also stressed the need to integrate ICT skills in all professions, pointing out that such skills are crucial for productivity gains.
"If we are to roll out e-health, e-learning or e-government services, it is clear that doctors, nurses and certainly teachers, need to have the necessary skills," he said, adding that the more people develop their ICT skills, the easier life will become for them.
Campbell said more focus should be placed on how ICT can make teaching and learning more effective and that Government should provide teachers with all the technical assistance possible if they are to carry out their jobs effectively.
Participant Marjorie Gordon, who teaches at York Castle High, said the e-learning programme has been quite beneficial to her and her colleagues. She said it will help to change the way teachers carry out their job functions.
"I am now typing my own test papers and I am even teaching from my computer," Gordon said, and urged her colleagues to continue to put into practice lessons learnt from the programme.
Through the project, the Government is hoping that teachers will use information and communication technologies to assist in enhancing the teaching and learning of students. Its aim is to have some 11,000 teachers and lecturers certified. Six thousand five hundred have already been certified through HEART TRUST/NTA.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Alesia Edwards
Quelle/Source: Jamaica Observer, 28.04.2009
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