Pre­mier and Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dr Na­talio Wheat­ley says ed­u­ca­tors in the British Vir­gin Is­lands (BVI) now rank among the high­est-paid in the re­gion fol­low­ing a re­cent com­pen­sa­tion re­view.

Dur­ing his re­cent bud­get ad­dress, Wheat­ley high­light­ed that the start­ing salary for qual­i­fied teach­ers in the BVI now stands at  US$55,146 per year—a fig­ure that sur­pass­es the start­ing salary in the near­by Unit­ed States Vir­gin Is­lands (USVI), which stands at ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$50,974. The dif­fer­ence amounts to an an­nu­al ad­van­tage of US$4,172 for BVI teach­ers.

“This com­pet­i­tive salary sup­ports our ef­forts to at­tract and re­tain tal­ent­ed ed­u­ca­tors, a crit­i­cal fac­tor in the suc­cess of our stu­dents and the sys­tem as a whole,”  Wheat­ley stat­ed.

The ad­just­ment fol­lows ur­gent ap­peals in ear­ly 2023 by Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Sharie de Cas­tro, who raised con­cerns about alarm­ing­ly high res­ig­na­tion rates among teach­ers.

At the time, de Cas­tro point­ed out the dis­par­i­ty be­tween salaries in the BVI and neigh­bour­ing re­gions.

“It is un­der­stand­able that low com­pen­sa­tion for teach­ers dis­cour­ages our own from en­ter­ing the pro­fes­sion,” de Cas­tro said at the time, em­pha­sis­ing the link be­tween com­pet­i­tive pay and re­tain­ing high-qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tors.

She added that low salaries had forced many teach­ers to take on sec­ond or third jobs, de­tract­ing from their abil­i­ty to fo­cus on teach­ing and shap­ing the ter­ri­to­ry’s fu­ture work­force.

De Cas­tro ar­gued that in­creased pay would re­duce turnover, keep teach­ers in the class­room, and el­e­vate the qual­i­ty of ed­u­ca­tion in the ter­ri­to­ry.

TOR­TO­LA, British Vir­gin Is­lands, Nov. 17, CMC –

CMC/bv/kb/2024