ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada, CMC—A senior official in the Ministry of Education has announced that more than 350 temporary teachers have been reappointed and paid outstanding salaries.
“On behalf of the Ministry of Education, I am pleased to report that of the 392 teachers which we indicated were up for reappointment and that we had some delay in salary payments, we can report that as of today, all these teachers have been reappointed and they have been paid they outstanding salaries,” said Aaron Francois, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education with Responsibility for Education Administration.
“The ministry wishes to take this opportunity to thank all our collaborating public service partners who would have worked with us to accomplish this and also to extend thanks for the understanding of our teachers and to apologize for the inconvenience that would have caused as a result of the delay in their salary,” he said.
He said that the Education Ministry has strengthened its internal system to ensure that the situation does not repeat.
“We want to assure everyone that through this painful experience, we would have learned lessons, and already we have taken action to strengthen our internal systems so that an event like that will not reoccur again,” Francois said.
The senior public servant did not provide details about the delay but acknowledged that the problem is greater than the Ministry of Education.
“But, we have begun the process of closer dialogue and communications with our public sector partners to make sure that the matter is fixed and resolved so that we don’t have that problem going forward,” he said.
Earlier this month, teachers took industrial action over the non-payment of salaries to some of their colleagues. The Grenada Union of Teachers (GUT) indicated that it is prepared to take further action “to ensure a speedy resolution to this critical issue.”
GUT president Jude Bartholomew said the union had been pointing out for several months that many teachers were not receiving salaries in accordance with the scheduled bi-weekly payment.
The union said that the delay in the payment for the affected teachers began in August.
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