MOE looking to settle outstanding payments to teachers for summer school programme

The Ministry of Education and Youth says it is doing the necessary investigations to remunerate teachers who worked in the national summer programme last year but are yet to be paid. 

Speaking at a post-Cabinet press briefing on Wednesday, acting permanent secretary Maureen Dwyer said the education ministry is currently doing an inventory to address the discrepancies. 

“What we found out so far is that there are some anomalies and some misunderstandings by some of our teachers as to whether the money was placed in their account or the Ministry did not pay them,” she said. 

“So, what we are doing now is to surface our records at the Ministry and to get into the records of the teachers at their schools and asking them to look into their accounts to make sure we can reconcile where we are.” 

Some teachers who worked in the programme last year told The Gleaner recently that they will not return because of lack of payment. 

READ: Some teachers threaten pull-out from remedial summer school programme

“We have just written it off as bad debt and the Ministry will have to use people from Heroes' Circle (Ministry headquarters). None of the teachers who we know of who worked last year and who have not been paid are planning to work this year. In fact, even those who have been paid said they are not volunteering,” a spokesman for a group of teachers said. 

Stating that an update will be provided as necessary, Dwyer noted that the number of teachers who did not receive payment was not significant. 

“In about five of our regions, the numbers are below 10, but in others, the numbers are more,” she said.

Schools are grouped into seven regions. 

Meanwhile, Minister of Education Fayval Williams disclosed that the summer school programme, now known as the National Summer Academy, started this week.

Fifty-seven schools across Jamaica are participating and the programme is expected to reach 28,000 students. 

“We are expected to impact some 7,800 students in the face-to-face modality and 20,000 plus students in the virtual space. The difference between the face-to-face and the virtual; for the face-to-face, those are students who need support in terms of literacy and numeracy. And then the virtual space is for students who are almost at mastery and are still needing a little bit of support to get them into mastery,” she said. 

- Sashana Small 

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