Education Minister only aware of one school where teachers yet to receive September pay

By Nakinskie Robinson  

 

Education Minister Fayval Williams says she is aware of only one institution where teachers have not received salaries for September.

 

She was responding to questions from opposition member of Parliament Dr. Angela Brown Burke in the House of Representatives on Tuesday afternoon.

 

Minister Williams said her team had been working overtime to ensure timely disbursement of salaries.

 

But in a story first aired on Radio Jamaica News on Friday, Principal of George Headley Primary School, Aretha Willie, indicated that seven teachers, five of whom are new, were not paid.

 

Mrs. Willie said she had made contact with the Ministry and was told the salaries would have been paid by last Friday, but up to Monday, there were no changes.

 

At the time, she told Radio Jamaica News that teachers at two more primary schools had also not been paid.

 

But Minister Williams said she is unaware of the discrepancy at multiple schools. 

 

"I know that there is only one school so far, of which I am aware, that told us that some teachers did not get their payment on time. And when we looked into it, in many of the cases, over a handful of teachers' documents came in late," she said. 

 

Asked whether the school she was referring to was George Headley Primary, the minister answered in the negative, but promised to "look into that". 

 

"It's mostly when we get into September, it's mostly the new teachers coming on to the system because there's paperwork that the ministry needs to get and sometimes it takes a little while to get to where it's going. But we are very conscious of not causing delays and that's why we have worked so hard to get that system into the ministry because otherwise payroll tends to be manual," the minister asserted.