Meet the Head of Department

Welcome to the Department of Foundation & Education Management, Faculty of Education & Humanities. The department remains one of the main departments providing the nation with professionally qualified educators, teachers, supervisors and administrators. Specializing in undergraduate study in the field of Administration, Early Childhood and Primary education, the department targets practitioners desirous of developing their skills in pedagogy, school management and policy and research in education.

The department is especially proud to announce that in 2010 it was amongst the first in Guyana to respond to CARICOM’s Regional Guidelines for Early Childhood Development (ECD), through the introduction of an Early Childhood Professional Development programme. At present, other than the Associate Degree and Trained Teacher’s Certificate offered for Nursery teachers at the Cyril Potter College of Education, this is the only ECD programme in Guyana which provides matriculation status to the Bachelor’s Degree Programme in Early Childhood Education.

As a former student of the Department of Foundation and Education Management, it gives me great pleasure in endorsing the department’s reputation for producing world-class practitioners, administrators and researchers. Over the years, the importance of paying attention not only to what is taught, but to how it is taught has become a trademark in the delivery of our programmes. According to reports from our students, the disposition, experience and knowledge of our lecturers and tutors are to be admired:

He was good. He pointed out all our mistakes, we had to dot all our i’s and cross all the t’s; but he made jokes… great personality …he knew his stuff, you could not fool him. You could bluff some of the other lectures, not him [giggles]. (Second Year ECD Student)

She does not teach only what is in the module. I think she teaches much more. You know, like she teaches what is ‘inside of her’…. (First Year ECD Student)

The department believes that education is our best hope for the future and endorses the quote from our founding champion: “Whoever touches the life of a child touches the most sensitive point of a whole, which has roots in the most distant past and climbs towards the infinite future” (Dr. Maria Montessori, 1870 –1952).

Best Regards,

Dr. Michelle Semple-McBean

Head of Department, Department of Foundation & Education Management