Education Ministry clarifies EAP status

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has sought to clar­i­fy the sta­tus of its Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme, as­sur­ing em­ploy­ees that steps are be­ing tak­en to main­tain ac­cess to psy­cho-so­cial sup­port ser­vices.

In a state­ment, the Min­istry said it is ac­tive­ly ad­dress­ing arrange­ments for the pro­vi­sion of EAP ser­vices to en­sure they re­main “ef­fec­tive, ef­fi­cient and sus­tain­able”.

It con­firmed that fund­ing for the pro­gramme was al­lo­cat­ed in the Fis­cal 2026 Bud­get.

The Min­istry em­pha­sised that no user fees have been in­tro­duced for Min­istry-sup­port­ed EAP coun­selling ser­vices.

“Em­ploy­ees are not re­quired to pay any fee to ac­cess coun­selling pro­vid­ed through ap­proved Min­istry mech­a­nisms, in­clud­ing a re­port­ed charge of $450 per ses­sion,” Min­istry ex­plained.

The state­ment not­ed that claims sug­gest­ing oth­er­wise were in­ac­cu­rate.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry, any coun­selling ser­vices in­de­pen­dent­ly arranged by in­di­vid­u­als out­side of Min­istry-ap­proved chan­nels fall out­side the scope of the Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme. Such ser­vices, it said, should not be viewed as a re­place­ment for em­ploy­er-sup­port­ed coun­selling and psy­choso­cial care.

The Min­istry ac­knowl­edged the im­por­tance of men­tal health and psy­cho-so­cial sup­port to em­ploy­ee well­be­ing, work­force re­silience and the ef­fec­tive de­liv­ery of ed­u­ca­tion ser­vices across the coun­try. It not­ed that ac­cess to ap­pro­pri­ate sup­port sys­tems is a key com­po­nent of main­tain­ing a healthy and pro­duc­tive work­force with­in the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor.

The state­ment reaf­firmed the Min­istry’s com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing that suit­able mech­a­nisms are in place to sup­port all em­ploy­ees. It al­so in­di­cat­ed that fur­ther in­for­ma­tion would be pro­vid­ed once fi­nal arrange­ments for the Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme are com­plet­ed.

The Min­istry ad­vised em­ploy­ees to re­ly on of­fi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tions for ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing ac­cess to EAP ser­vices and re­it­er­at­ed its in­ten­tion to keep stake­hold­ers in­formed as the process moves for­ward.