A total 1,345 teachers graduated from the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) today bringing the total percentage of graduate teachers in the country’s education system to 68%
At this morning’s Graduation Ceremony, Minister of Education, Sonia Parag said the 2025 cohort represents a significant milestone in the country’s journey to achieving 100% trained teachers in the public education system in keeping with the Government’s plan to improve the quality of education delivery.
Early Childhood, Primary, Secondary Academic and Secondary TVET made up some of the programmes completed by graduates.
“Region One, we have 135 graduates. We are talking about our hinterland regions, we are talking about when we used to take about 10 students from the hinterland; we now have 135 being graduated. We have 164 graduates from Region Two, 169 from Region Three, 304 from Region Four, 119 from Region Five, 35 from Region Seven and 23 from Region Eight and that should be applauded because Region Eight is a very difficult region in terms of its geography, Region Nine, 76 graduates – a total of 1, 345,” the Minister detailed.
She said over the past five years, the country has increased the number of trained teachers in the system, and in the case of the Hinterland, the number of trained teachers in the system has climbed to 92%.
Offering also, words of encouragement, the Education Minister urged graduate teachers to do their best.
“Exercise your duties with integrity, with compassion and with the particular nobleness that comes with this profession. And so, don’t get caught up in the nuances of everyday life, because every single individual don’t matter what profession you hold or no matter what you do in life you will have challenges. And this is nothing new to you, because you would have gone through a journey that you would have had obstacles, that you would have had challenges and yet you are sitting here on today’s date, and we are celebrating you and the fact that you have made it to the finish line. We applaud you,” Minister Parag said.
The Education Minsiter also announced that the CPCE’s curriculum will be expanded to include a number of specialized programmes in Geography, History, Chemistry, Physics, French and Portuguese.
Presenting the Principal’s Report for 2025, Vice Principal – Development, Tasmin Henry said 2025 marks the fourth year since the College transitioned from its transitional mode of curriculum delivery to a hybrid approach, thereby significantly increasing its intake. She said the results continue to be remarkable.
Of the 1,345 graduates, 388 graduated from the Early Childhood Education Programme; 384 from Primary Education; 187 from Secondary Academic; 303 from Secondary TVET, and 35 from the GTE and TTE programmes. A matriculation rate of 94.25 percent was recorded.
Now that they have graduated, the teachers will return to their regions and communities to advance the Ministry of Education’s national curriculum for the Nursery, Primary and Secondary Levels of Education.
“This significant graduation exercise will witness hundreds of our teacher candidates returning to classrooms across all 10 administrative regions throughout the country as professionally trained teachers and in many cases, trained graduates. More significantly, however, several hundreds of these teachers will return to the hinterland and riverain areas across the country as academically and professionally trained teachers to deliver our national curriculum to thousands of hinterland and riverain students in the same manner as their coastal colleagues,” the Vice Principal Development said.
The Vice Principal said notwithstanding challenges, CPCE continues to pursue its mission of training teachers at the first three levels of education.
She said among the College’s achievements is the introduction of Music, Literacy, Special Education Needs and Disability and Health and Family Life Education as major options in the Technical and Vocational Education Training, and Secondary Programmes.
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