Education Minister Says Teachers’ Salaries Will Not Be Touched

Patrick Faber

Minister of Education, Patrick Faber says that there will be cuts in some of the services that his ministry offers in the days ahead, as a matter of priority to deal with the financial crisis. One of the biggest recurrent expenditures of the Ministry of Education is spent on salaries for teachers. But like the Prime Minister, Patrick Faber says salaries wouldn’t be affected.  Of the various line items in the ministry’s budget for the fiscal year 2020, two hundred and seventy-nine million dollars are for recurrent expenditure. For capital investments, eighteen point five million dollars was allocated; two point four million for youth support services and investment in sports and sixteen point one million dollars for enhancement of policy strategy, framework in education system and a special education unit. Minister Faber says that some of those projects, which are funded by local and international donors, will be put aside.

Patrick Faber, Minister of Education

“One of those issues that concerns us immediately is of course the payroll for teachers because while those government-owned schools and those schools that are denominational, but get a hundred percent from the government—at the primary level primarily, that is—they get paid through Smart Stream now. There are secondary schools and tertiary schools that get a grant. And so when we are talking about moving to one-twentieth, evidently that is an indication that that is going to be cut. But I raised the matter yesterday with the Prime Minister, who is also our Minister of Finance, as you know and he assured me and I have said to my staff that we will do all that we need to do to ensure that those salaries, those salary grants or whatever the proper term is—I will refrain from trying even to remember the proper term, because I want people to know it goes into paying salaries and it is the first priority of our administration. So I don’t want people to get jumpy, especially our teachers, when they hear that. We are going to try our best to ensure that those salary grants are there.  Our capital budget in some instances is funded by foreign sources; some is funded locally. We have to put in counterpart funding. That is going to be difficult to do in some instances. So insofar as our agenda remains the same, yes it does. And where we can carry out that agenda with the funds—whether it is local or foreign—we will do so. But nothing should be misinterpreted; these monies are now very hard to come by. Where it is that those things that are budgeted under cap two and cap three no longer seem to be the main priority for us now, they will have to be put on the side. In some cases, I am not sure if there are any instances in the Ministry of Education, but some of those capital projects that are funded by international agencies, have given permission for the redirecting of some of those funds to be used for other things, COVID-19 related. So nothing is really concrete.”