Acting Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Science and Technology the Hon. Chester Cooper provided an update on teacher recruitment on Tuesday.
Cooper told reporters priority is being given to locals to fill teaching vacancies, with additional assistance being sourced in other countries. He said, “we benchmarked a 300 shortage at the beginning of the summer. We’ve substantially reduced that. We have teachers coming in at varying levels. Our primary focus was to ensure that we recruited as many Bahamian teachers as possible. We’ve now recruited more than one hundred Bahamian teachers—persons who were outside of the service who’ve come back, retirees, as well as recent graduates from the University of The Bahamas as well as other universities.”
The minister also spoke to the vetting process needed before teachers can enter the classrooms. Cooper said, “another hundred, I would say, at varying stages of vetting. That would include the police, NAECOB, security vetting, etc., and some interviewing being done internally. We’re making significant strides and we are going to continue to press forward until the job is done.”
