Education and Human Resources Development Minister Jeanne Siméon starts visits to educational institutions |16 June 2018

Site is key in our strategic plan, says Minister Siméon

With the aim of encouraging, motivating and giving support to educational institutions, their management teams, teaching and non-teaching staff as well as learners, Minister Jeanne Siméon has started a series of familiarisation visits.

The Minister for Education and Human Resource Development (MEHRD) embarked on the first of such visits yesterday morning at the Seychelles Institute for Teacher Education (Site).

In addition, these visits will also focus on the needs of the various institutions and programmes geared towards supporting the schools in order to get results that are expected from the students.

Being in the frontline to provide qualified teachers, Site was chosen by Minister Siméon as the first institution to start her visit.

“Site has a very important place in our strategic plan as it is providing us with trained, qualified teachers to work in our schools and I am here to show my support for the work being done and to also discuss their accomplishments and challenges that will help us at the ministry to help them better,” said Minister Siméon.

Upon arriving at the institution, the minister and her delegation were met by Site director Rosianna Jules and other members of her management team. Accompanied by her special advisor Merida Delcy, the principal secretary for Tertiary and Human Resource Development, Dr Linda Barallon and other high education officials, they were taken on a tour of the premises.

The visit started at the library moving on to the different classrooms, staff rooms, the auditorium, the cafeteria and the administration section where the minister interacted with staff, teachers and students in class.

After the visit, Minister Siméon met the institute’s management and board members for a meeting.

As the institute is developing a new training programme, the main challenge being faced is staffing and Minister Siméon said the ministry will support the institution to get qualified staff to run those programmes and if necessary will recruit foreign teachers if locals cannot meet the demand.

Minister Siméon also noted that the institute needs some renovation work to improve its environment and upgrade its IT system among other issues brought to her attention. 

On staff retention, Minister Siméon said Site is now autonomous and has a new scheme of service which has been approved by the authority and on which more information will be made available soon to the institution’s employees.

Currently, Site has 32 members of staff (27 academic and 5 supporting) who are providing services to 300 students of whom 200 are being trained as part-time teachers. From the other 100 full time students, 70 are being trained to teach at secondary level while the rest are being trained to teach at early childhood and primary levels.

“Site is in our strategic plan for this year and we will be pushing further for things to move faster because if we want people to join Site we have to make sure that the environment is conducive to attract more young people to join the teaching profession,” said Minister Siméon.

Mrs Jules said it was an honour to welcome the minister and said the visit is very important as the institution has a direct effect on the country’s education system as it strives to provide adequate qualified teachers. 

Mrs Jules noted that more has to be done to attract male students to take up teacher training in the arts as there are only female arts students following teacher training in this field at the moment.

Site was formed in 2014 to replace the then National Institute for Education (NIE).

The accompanying photos show the minister during her visit at Site.