New school heads named |20 January 2005

A number of them are former headteachers who had taken a break to study for a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) degree at the National Institute of Education while three will be assuming school leadership roles for the first time.

The director for schools, Mrs Jeanne Simeon gave their names at NIE Wednesday where the headteachers held a meeting chaired by Education principal secretary Macsuzy Mondon.
Gerard Albert will now head Anse Boileau secondary school and Rosemary Bastienne will take his former place at Mont Fleuri secondary school.

Nella Gentile will head Anse Royale secondary school replacing Marie-Claire Henriette as Marie-Cecile Benstrong takes charge of Plaisance secondary school in the place of Dora Ernesta who assumes new responsibilities at MEY headquarters.

Monica Accouche will now head the School for the Exceptional Child as Muriel Manes retires, and as Milena Richard assumes top responsibility at Baie Lazare primary school allowing Marguerite Belle to go for the MBA programme.

Doris Bick will be headteacher of Belonie school, which Linda Barallon was heading in acting capacity as Beryl Botsoie becomes headteacher at Glacis primary where Bernard Songoire was acting head.

Sultanne Jacqueline will head La Misere primary school where Jeanne Etienne was the interim head and Jude Padayachy will go to La Rosiere primary as acting headteacher, as the school's former head, Vivienne Preira goes for MBA.

Sylvia Alcindor will now head Takamaka primary school as Inese Oreddy goes for MBA.
Seychelles Weekend Nation hopes to publish individual pictures and names of all the 33 school heads on Saturday.

During the meeting, Mrs Mondon said that government has invested a lot of money in the training of staff and expressed both hope and confidence that the impact of the investment will be forthcoming from them.

"Of those of who have completed the MBA programme we introduced last year, we expect to see a difference in the way they lead the schools in their day to day functioning," she said.

She said it would be useless if people are trained and they do not apply the knowledge and skills they have gained.

She also emphasized on the new initiatives that MEY is introducing, many of which are spelled out in the new Education Act which came into force at the beginning of this year.

"We expect that our teachers and students will be guided by the new Act," she said, adding that it will also be the time to implement recommendations which emanated from last year's conference on Education.

She said that the recommendations have been put together into an action plan which will be implemented from Monday.

The PS noted that students will also be sitting for new international examinations, and listed a number of other proposed efforts which she said will add to the teachers and students' challenges during the Year 2005.

The headteachers were also presented with copies of the calendar of events showing the major events related to the theme, "Our Children, our treasure, our future," under which this year will be marked.