Unnecessary delays
Dear Editor,
I recently completed my Postgraduate Diploma in Education, qualifying me to move from an untrained graduate to a trained graduate, with the corresponding salary adjustment. I submitted my diploma in May, and my school forwarded it to the Ministry of Education. However, despite months passing, I am still waiting for my salary to reflect my new qualification.
This situation is deeply frustrating, as teachers like myself are encouraged to pursue the necessary training to become qualified and receive fair compensation. Yet months after completing my diploma I have not been paid at the correct scale.
This is not the first time I have faced such delays. In September 2018, when I started working at a school in St Mary, I was paid as a pretrained teacher instead of the pretrained/untrained graduate I was. At that time I received around $65,000 instead of the $100,000 plus I should have been earning.
It wasn’t until January that I received the correct salary. I started my current job in September 2020 and waited until March of the following year to be paid correctly. To make matters worse, my retroactive salary took a year to be processed.
Unfortunately, I am not alone in experiencing these issues. After months of waiting, one of my colleagues did not receive his correct salary until June. By that time, out of frustration, he had already submitted his resignation.
This is a recurring issue across public schools, whereby teachers sometimes go months without being compensated correctly, and some even go months without receiving any pay at all. This is unacceptable, and the Ministry of Education must act urgently to address the situation. Teachers should not have to endure prolonged uncertainty and financial stress when they have fulfilled all the requirements for their positions.
The ministry must streamline its processes to ensure teachers are paid fairly and on time so we can focus on our primary responsibility — educating the nation’s children — without the burden of financial delays.
Teddense Thomas
teddensetkt@gmail.com
