Teachers await word on graduate allowance
Published:Saturday | October 7, 2023 | 12:08 AMEdmond Campbell/Senior Parliamentary Reporter
DESPITE A $37.2 billion allocation in the Third Supplementary Estimates for payments to public-sector workers in the second year of the compensation review, teachers who did not receive their graduate and remote allowances are yet to receive a definitive word from the Government on when they will be paid these sums.
Jamaica Teachers Association (JTA) President Leighton Johnson told The Gleaner that the teachers want the matter to be handled with greater urgency so that educators can receive what was due to them by the next pay cycle.
On Wednesday, both Financial Secretary Darlene Morrison and newly appointed permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education and Youth, Dr Kasan Troupe, were unable to provide members of the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) with a timeline as to when the teachers would be paid their allowances.
At the same time, Morrison and Troupe appeared to have been at variance on the question of whether the sums set aside for the compensation review included amounts for the graduate and remote allowances.
Asked by PAAC Chairman Mikael Phillips if the $37.2 billion allocated in the Third Supplementary Estimates for compensation review would take care of the graduate and remote allowances, the financial secretary said: “I should hope so, Sir.”
Pressed for a definitive response, Morrison answered in the affirmative.
However, when Troupe was asked a similar question, she said: “What I know from coming in at the back end of this is that what was requested did not include the sum to resolve the remote and graduate allowance because it is still under negotiation in terms of discussion with the union, so that did not factor in this amount that we got through the supplementary.”
Troupe explained that remote allowance is given to teachers who work in the deep rural areas and volatile communities. She said approximately 2,400 teachers benefit from this allowance.
The graduate allowance is paid to teachers who upgrade themselves with their master’s degrees and PhDs.
The permanent secretary admitted that the education ministry erred by not factoring in the graduate allowance for some teachers under the compensation review.
ERROR IN PAYMENT
In terms of the remote allowance, the education ministry also acknowledged that it made an error by paying the teachers who benefit from this sum at the old rate instead of the new rate that was agreed on in the compensation review.
“The union has brought the issue to the table, and the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service has given a commitment to reassess that and to work it through and to give some directive. We have not yet been in receipt of that directive,” she said.
Phillips asked the financial secretary for an update on the Ministry of Finance’s directive.
“I am going to get back to you,” Morrison replied.
And the JTA president said that the non-payment of the two allowances to designated teachers that were agreed on as part of the compensation review has impacted the teaching profession negatively.
Johnson said he appreciates the fact that the Government has now admitted that the calculations were not done correctly and that attempts are now being made to correct the wrong that was done to the nation’s teachers.
The JTA president noted that while a payment schedule is yet to be agreed on, whatever is owed to the teachers would have to take effect from the date the compensation review was implemented.
“So teachers would have to be paid retroactively what they were owed because they were not paid in full and the application of the graduate allowance was not done,” he said.