Dowlath: No backpay for teachers in $127.8M allocation

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath has clar­i­fied that none of the $127.8 mil­lion in sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing be­ing sought by his min­istry in­cludes pro­vi­sions for out­stand­ing back­pay for teach­ers, de­spite on­go­ing con­cerns from ed­u­ca­tors and their rep­re­sen­ta­tive unions over de­lays in re­ceiv­ing retroac­tive pay­ments.

Dowlath made the dis­clo­sure dur­ing yes­ter­day’s meet­ing of the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee in Par­lia­ment, while re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Op­po­si­tion MP for St Ann’s East Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly.

The com­mit­tee was ex­am­in­ing a re­quest for an ad­di­tion­al $127,779,300 for the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion when Gads­by-Dol­ly sought clar­i­fi­ca­tion on whether any por­tion of the al­lo­ca­tion would be used to set­tle out­stand­ing back­pay oblig­a­tions to teach­ers.

In re­sponse, Dowlath said the funds were in­tend­ed to cov­er salaries and re­lat­ed pay­ments for pub­lic of­fi­cers un­der the min­istry.

“Through you, Madam Chair, this in­crease will cov­er salaries to pub­lic ser­vants, 1,533 civ­il ser­vants, SRC of­fice hold­ers and Third Sched­ule of­fi­cers for the pe­ri­od Ju­ly 2026 to Sep­tem­ber 2026 un­der the min­istry’s head of­fice,” he said.

Pressed fur­ther on whether any of the al­lo­ca­tion had been set aside for back­pay for teach­ers, the min­is­ter replied: “The ad­vance pay­ment com­po­nent of back­pay was paid. I’m ad­vised that the ad­vance pay­ment for back­pay was paid in De­cem­ber 2025.”

When asked di­rect­ly whether there was any back­pay in­clud­ed in the cur­rent re­quest, Dowlath re­spond­ed: “None.”

Gads­by-Dol­ly al­so ques­tioned al­lo­ca­tions un­der the min­istry’s Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion and Pri­ma­ry Ed­u­ca­tion di­vi­sions, specif­i­cal­ly ask­ing whether vari­a­tions to salary and cost-of-liv­ing al­lowance lines in­clud­ed any pro­vi­sions for teacher back­pay.

Dowlath again in­di­cat­ed that no such pay­ments were in­clud­ed.

“No. There’s no back­pay. It’s on­ly to cov­er salaries and cost of liv­ing and NIS, both un­der the pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary. So no back­pay has been var­ied, has been fed in­to this vari­a­tion in those nine items,” he said.

The clar­i­fi­ca­tion comes amid con­tin­u­ing frus­tra­tion among teach­ers over the de­layed pay­ment of retroac­tive salary ar­rears aris­ing from wage ne­go­ti­a­tions con­clud­ed with the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion.

While ed­u­ca­tors have be­gun re­ceiv­ing salaries un­der the up­dat­ed wage struc­ture, sub­stan­tial back­pay re­mains out­stand­ing.

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials have pre­vi­ous­ly point­ed to ad­min­is­tra­tive au­dit­ing re­quire­ments and fis­cal con­straints as fac­tors con­tribut­ing to the de­lay in pro­cess­ing the ar­rears.

How­ev­er, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) has ar­gued that the pay­ments con­sti­tute legal­ly owed com­pen­sa­tion rather than dis­cre­tionary ben­e­fits and have warned that pro­longed de­lays are erod­ing the val­ue of the mon­ey owed due to in­fla­tion.

Con­tact­ed last evening for a com­ment on the min­is­ter’s rev­e­la­tion, TTUTA pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe said, “That re­sponse by the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion is tru­ly dis­ap­point­ing at this date, Fri­day 12th, June 2026. It just goes to show the lit­tle val­ue that is placed on our present/per­ma­nent ed­u­ca­tors. How­ev­er, there are funds to pay new con­tract work­ers!!!”

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo pre­vi­ous­ly not­ed that union of­fi­cials were aware of the time­line for ar­rears and re­it­er­at­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to ho­n­our­ing its oblig­a­tions.

“I ap­pre­ci­ate their need to con­vince mem­bers that they have start­ed seek­ing their in­ter­ests. This Gov­ern­ment re­mains com­mit­ted to meet­ing its oblig­a­tions. I am cer­tain that teach­ers know that their ar­rears are go­ing to be paid,” he said, while ac­knowl­edg­ing the coun­try’s “se­vere­ly chal­lenged po­si­tion.”