This Institute has a:

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Centre for Teaching Excellence – Known for its innovative academic programmes; its conduct of transformative educational research; its commitment to the ongoing development of faculty; its exceptional graduates.

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Centre for Educational Leadership – focuses on developing well qualified administrators, broadly informed about academic matters and the prudent management of personnel, financial and physical assets, who are committed to excellence, and possessing both moral and educational vision to take their institutions forward in a rapidly changing global environment. The Centre prepares school administrators to be enlightened ethical leaders through the development of critical leadership skills which include strategic thinking, communication, persuasion, motivation, advocacy, consensus building, conflict resolution, building effective teams, negotiation, and crisis management.

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The Centre for Educational Leadership has created an Educational Leaders’ Programme of which core components are:

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1. The Post Graduate Diploma in Educational Leadership (PGDEL) – a programme of courses for practising and aspiring principals and vice- principals. The PGDE has five core courses, consisting of 16 credits and three electives consisting of six credits, giving a total of 22 credits.

2. Middle Leaders’ Training Programme (MLTP) – is a certificate programme which uses a module format to deliver 120 hours of in-class instruction to school middle managers. In addition, candidates must complete the Leadership Practicum which is worth 60 hours.

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The MLTP is designed for mid-level leadership including Heads of Department, Senior Teachers, Grade Coordinators, Programme Chairs, and Guidance Counsellors and, in the Jamaican context, Deans of Discipline, who make up the administrative team of educational institutions especially primary and secondary schools.

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The CTC Institute for Excellence has developed the curriculum outlines for a number of courses in areas of educational leadership identified as critical gaps in teacher competence which form the core elements of our educational system. We have completed the course outlines for these courses and they were approved by the National College for Educational Leadership (NCEL), giving us exclusive rights to offer these courses to middle managers who will be certified by NCEL.

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The continuing education programme for teachers at the CTC Institute for Excellence in Leadership and  

Teacher Development has several different components:

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•     Workshops and Seminars

•     Critical conversations in Education

•     Applied Research in Schools

•     Additional Qualification Course

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The following are key activities that are currently being undertaken by the

Institute:

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1.  Educational Leadership Seminar Series (ELSS): Critical Conversations in Education

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The ELSS is a monthly speaker event that takes the form of panel discussions, roundtable talks, and presentations of recent and on-going research in educational leadership and education, and guest speakers. It seeks to provide a forum for school leaders, educators, scholars and other educational stakeholders to engage in critical conversations about issues in education including:

School Leadership                                           Successful Schools

Teacher Education                                           Teacher Licensing

Early Childhood Education                               Educational Policy

Research in Education                                      Security in Schools

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ELSS seminars in the past have focused on at-risk students and some of the efforts being made to reach these students through programmes implemented in their schools.

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Work continues on our ELSS newsletters which summarize the main points presented and discussed during our well-received seminars. As a result of a strong recommendation coming from participants, the CTC Institute for Excellence ensures that   these   best   practices   are   researched in depth, documented   and promulgated.

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A strong emphasis is being placed on research and publishing to strengthen the research agenda of the institute and the college by utilizing the support, expertise and interest of faculty.

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Finally, we hope to find the resources to edit video recordings of past ELSS seminars held to date and package these for uploading on the Institute’s YouTube channel.

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2. MOU & Activities Undertaken with Selected Schools

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The CTC Institute for Excellence has focused on developing a strong working relationship with a pilot group of schools, who have agreed to open their doors to allow the Institute to both assist them with documenting and conducting research on best practices regarding working with at-risk students. It is intended that research undertaken in these schools will provide the nucleus of the scholarly papers to be included in the inaugural issue of the Institute’s peer-reviewed journal “Caribbean Leadership & Education.”  The schools are:

• Aenon Town All-Age School

• Green Park Primary & Junior High

• Osborne Store Primary & Junior High

• Villa Road Primary & Junior High

 

In addition, the Institute is involved in the following activities:

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 (a)    Conducting research which explored the lived experiences of teachers dealing successfully with at-risk students

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The primary purpose of the study, entitled “The Lived Experiences of Teachers Dealing Successfully with At-Risk Students: Best Practices from the Field as a Critical Success Factor for Educational Re- Engineering in Jamaica”, is to produce findings that can be recommended to teacher training institutions and school principals for creating contexts that influence effective detection, teaching/learning of at-risk students in schools. As well, this study is designed to provide a body of literature to which education policy makers can refer to and provide findings upon which recommendations concerning improving the delivery of instruction to at-risk students can be based.

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 (b)    Applied Action Research in Schools Workshop 

 (c)    Professional Development Workshops in the Field

 

3. Presentation of Research Papers

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The institute presented papers at the recently held Research Days at Church Teachers’ College: Mandeville and Northern Caribbean University, respectively. In due course we will be publishing abstracts of these and other articles as part of the institute’s publications page on Issuu.com. We are also in the process of working with Sixth Form students from a number of schools to teach them about the research process with the goal of enhancing their preparations for university.