PAY TEACHERS THEIR MONEY

On the first day of school after the Easter holidays the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) protested outside the Ministry of Education on behalf of 800 teachers who have not yet received arrears of payments owed to them for the period 1987 to 1995. Fortunately the protest was conducted largely by officials and only a few teachers which meant that classes were not disrupted on the first day of school. In any event while TTUTA officials protested in the rain, the Minister of Education Hazel Manning was centre stage with her husband Prime Minister Patrick Manning in the Brian Lara welcome home spectacle.

It is true that 9,200 of the country’s 10,000 teachers, who were owed the money have already been paid but for some inexplicable reason the Ministry is dragging its feet on the processing of these 800 payments. In fact the only information available is that the 800 teachers have not yet had a statement of the arrears due to them. Why is this so? What could be taking so long to pay those teachers who are entitled to the money and are in the dark as to what is the sum due to them. The Ministry of Education, in the interest of good industrial relations should not only by now have examined what went wrong, but conveyed this to the teachers’ union. It should have explained to TTUTA, if it has not already done so, how far it has reached in the processing and how soon it hopes to complete the exercise. Both TTUTA and the teachers it represents are entitled to this courtesy.
 
The fact that 9,200 teachers have to date received monies owed them brings no comfort to teachers who have been left out. It  is fashionable to protest, and while most protests are aimed at pressuring the employer to give in to demands or to meet with workers to negotiate demands for increases there is no question that the 800 teachers should by now have been paid what is owing to them. We seem to have a lot of money for all sorts of things. So why do we not pay teachers whose job is so important? No wonder more and more teachers of value are seeking other areas of occupation.