Can Government Meet Teachers Wage Bill?

A new budget for the 2020 fiscal calendar came into effect at the beginning of April, but with the fluid economic situation involving COVID-19, there are concerns as to whether government will be able to meet teachers’ salaries in the months ahead.  When asked for assurances to that end earlier today, Minister of Education Patrick Faber refrained from providing a response.  Instead, he pointed to the overall hardships being faced by other countries that are also struggling financially with the pandemic.  Faber said that his ministry will try its utmost to ensure that teachers are duly compensated even with the existing constraints.

Patrick Faber

Patrick Faber, Minister of Education

“That is not a question that I want to take on, in fact I can’t take it on.  As all know, the country is experiencing financial struggles as all nations are in the world and so this is not something that is caused by a government.  This is something that is unfortunately with us without our saying so.  I think all know that there are measures, in fact bodies and mechanisms set up to determine how we are going to proceed in relation to the salaries of public servants and teachers.  And so, I would want us to leave that question to those kinds of entities that have been set up for that particular reason.  But as far as I know, as we speak, there is no definitive plan for that and what will happen in the future, as I’ve said, we’ll just have to wait and see.  But from the Ministry of Education’s viewpoint, we’ll have to try our best of course and we will try our best to ensure that teachers continue to get as best a remuneration as they possibly can, given our very, very constrained circumstances.”