Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath is as­sur­ing ed­u­ca­tors that all out­stand­ing pay­ments for last year’s Va­ca­tion Re­vi­sion Pro­gramme will be made.

Re­spond­ing to grow­ing con­cerns from teach­ers and prin­ci­pals, Dr Dowlath said dis­burse­ments are cur­rent­ly be­ing made week­ly to those who taught dur­ing the five-week ini­tia­tive, held dur­ing the Ju­ly/Au­gust 2024 va­ca­tion pe­ri­od. The pro­gramme was im­ple­ment­ed at 82 pri­ma­ry schools and 21 sec­ondary schools across Trinidad.

The min­is­ter’s re­as­sur­ance fol­lows com­plaints from sev­er­al teach­ers, some of whom say they have been wait­ing for over a year to be paid.

One re­tired teacher, who asked to re­main anony­mous, said this is the worst de­lay she has ex­pe­ri­enced in the pro­gramme’s three-year his­to­ry.

“Last year was the third year we did the pro­gramme. The first year, we were paid with­in a month; the sec­ond year, by Christ­mas. This year—noth­ing at all,” she said.

She added that all nec­es­sary doc­u­men­ta­tion was sub­mit­ted in Au­gust 2023, but mul­ti­ple fol­low-up calls to the Min­istry and its pay­roll de­part­ment have yield­ed no de­fin­i­tive an­swers.

Back in Jan­u­ary, Chief Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer Dr Pe­ter Smith is­sued a let­ter to af­fect­ed teach­ers, apol­o­gis­ing for the de­lay and thank­ing them for their con­tin­ued sup­port. How­ev­er, the re­tired teacher said there has been no fur­ther up­date since.

For­mer Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly al­so ad­dressed the is­sue at an Op­po­si­tion me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day.

“Pay­ments were be­ing processed up un­til I left of­fice,” she said.

“What may have hap­pened be­tween April 28 and now, I can­not say. But one would have ex­pect­ed those pay­ments to be com­plet­ed by now.”

Mean­while, TTUTA pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin is call­ing on Min­is­ter Dowlath to ho­n­our the pay­ments owed to ed­u­ca­tors.

“At the start of these pro­grammes in 2022, TTUTA was in­formed that fund­ing was se­cured for the full three-year du­ra­tion,” Lum Kin said. “These ed­u­ca­tors an­swered the call and dili­gent­ly car­ried out their du­ties. They must be paid.”

The Va­ca­tion Re­vi­sion Pro­gramme was de­signed to help bridge learn­ing gaps among stu­dents. In 2024, the pro­gramme was con­duct­ed at pri­ma­ry schools from Ju­ly 8 to Au­gust 9 and at sec­ondary schools from Ju­ly 15 to Au­gust 16.

The ini­tia­tive first be­gan in 2022 with 33 sec­ondary schools and ex­pand­ed in 2023 to in­clude 80 pri­ma­ry schools.