_{Photo: Dian Maheia, CEO at the Ministry of Education}

by Charles Gladden

BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Aug. 28, 2024

If you take a glimpse at the vacancy pool at this moment, you’ll notice that there are a bunch of vacant positions for teachers at the primary and secondary levels in certain districts of the country.

These vacant positions have left the impression upon persons on the outside looking in that there is a shortage of teachers in the country, and this was confirmed by the CEO in the Ministry of Education, Dian Maheia, who explained in an interview with the media on Wednesday, August 28, that the licenses for an estimated 2,300 teachers will expire at the end of the month – August 31. While some teachers are renewing their licenses by completing a mandatory 120 hours of training, some may ultimately lose their licenses.

“What we’ve seen from our work is that we have about 2,300 of those teachers who have completed the requirements, and their licenses have been renewed and processed; it’s like 88% of them. There’s another group, that’s about 9%, I think it’s something like 200 or a little bit less, those are in process. They’re either being reviewed or the teachers are completing the 120-hour assignment for whatever reason; those are in process. From the numbers that we indicate that we have, there’s only about 3% of teachers who have not submitted applications for their license renewal at this time,” she said.

“We’ve been working in collaboration with the BNTU. They’ve been very consistent in updating their surveys and sending to us at the ministry the list of teachers who have questions and concerns. Regarding the reports that they’ve gotten from the TLI [Teacher Learning Institute] or not gotten from the TLI with the list of names that we get from the BNTU, our respective units are doing the reviews and the checks so that we make sure that if there are … there’s something that we’re missing and the union is getting feedback,” she added.

CEO Maheia expressed that there have been challenges within the Ministry, as teachers are receiving their licenses or migrating abroad to different fields, and there is a large amount of vacancies for English teachers at the secondary level.

“We’ve recognized, we’ve made adjustments, and we’re continuing the process as quickly as possible. The truth is that there are vacancies right now. The data that we’ve collected shows that there are vacancies right now. For example, with the secondary level, there are vacancies for part-time as well as full-time positions, looking at both government and government-aided. What we see is that from the point that was made earlier, there is, there is a very large vacancy for teachers of English. That’s where the biggest gap is right now. We recognize that. So that is a real situation right now in secondary schools. We’re trying to see how we can support the management with that,” she said.

Coming soon, schools at the primary level will be opening for the new academic year, and CEO Maheia noted that there’s only so much they can do.

“We can make sure, as we are working to make sure that all the approvals that are pending will be processed as quickly as possible. So, the data that we have shows that about 95% of the vacant positions, for example, for primary, are people who are just waiting for the approvals. Those are what we are working toward right now. So, we anticipate that as we continue to push through with the approvals that are pending right now… a lot of this will be addressed.”