Teachers start receiving $900M backpay

KE­JAN HAYNES

Lead Ed­i­tor-News­gath­er­ing

ka­je­[email protected]

Some teach­ers across the coun­try have start­ed to re­ceive the long-await­ed $900 mil­lion in back­pay.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) said yes­ter­day that it had re­ceived re­ports from mem­bers that their back­pay for salaries cov­er­ing 2020 to 2023 had been rep­re­sent­ed on the IHIRIS plat­form, which al­lows pub­lic of­fi­cers to view their payslips on­line.

How­ev­er, TTUTA pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe said nei­ther the Min­istry of Fi­nance nor the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion had for­mal­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed with the as­so­ci­a­tion about the pay­ments.

“No for­mal com­mu­ni­ca­tion has been re­ceived by the As­so­ci­a­tion to date (Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 12, 2026) from ei­ther of­fi­cials of the Min­istry of Fi­nance or Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion,” TTUTA said in a me­dia re­lease signed by Ashe.

Ashe told Guardian Me­dia ear­li­er yes­ter­day he had con­firmed ru­mours of back­pay be­ing paid out, but the as­so­ci­a­tion has now made clear that its in­for­ma­tion is com­ing from its mem­ber­ship rather than from the Gov­ern­ment.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, when con­tact­ed, had noth­ing to say on whether pay­ments were be­ing made. He said on­ly via What­sApp, “State­ment to be made on this and oth­er is­sues on Wednes­day at Par­lia­ment.”

A se­nior Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion source al­so could not con­firm the pay­ments, but said teams had been work­ing over­time, in­clud­ing on week­ends, over the past few weeks.

TTUTA had pre­vi­ous­ly said about $900 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed in the 2025 na­tion­al bud­get to cov­er teach­ers’ out­stand­ing back­pay.

The re­ports from teach­ers come af­ter months of un­cer­tain­ty over when the pay­ments would be made.

As re­cent­ly as last Mon­day, Ashe ap­peared on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew and said TTUTA had been seek­ing a de­fin­i­tive date from the Gov­ern­ment.

“Just two weeks ago, we wrote three let­ters, one to the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance to find out some clar­i­ty, give us a de­fin­i­tive date with re­spect to the pay­ment. Where has it reached? How far along is it?” he said then.

TTUTA had al­so writ­ten to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath and Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Dr Daryl Din­di­al.

Ashe said Din­di­al was the on­ly one to re­spond, call­ing him di­rect­ly and say­ing he had spo­ken with the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary and that arrange­ments were be­ing made for pay­ment in Sep­tem­ber.

But Ashe said he was re­luc­tant to tell teach­ers that the pay­ment was def­i­nite based on­ly on that as­sur­ance.

“I said I ap­pre­ci­ate the phone call. I ap­pre­ci­ate you telling me this, but we’ve been there, done that al­ready,” he said.

“We’ve been to this point where you would give me in­for­ma­tion and then it wouldn’t come to fruition and I can’t take that and run to my mem­ber­ship.”

The union had pre­vi­ous­ly said teach­ers were ex­pect­ing pay­ment af­ter the Gov­ern­ment com­mit­ted to be­gin dis­burs­ing the ar­rears in Ju­ly 2025.

“Ju­ly came and ed­u­ca­tors re­ceived noth­ing. De­cem­ber came, noth­ing. Jan­u­ary came, noth­ing,” Ashe said.

The un­cer­tain­ty deep­ened ear­li­er this year when Fi­nance Min­is­ter Tan­coo in­di­cat­ed dur­ing the Mid-Year Bud­get Re­view that the out­stand­ing pay­ments would be made in fis­cal 2027, rais­ing fears that teach­ers would have to wait even longer.

TTUTA said the re­ports now com­ing from teach­ers that the back­pay is ap­pear­ing on IHIRIS rep­re­sent a sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ment.

“The fact that pay­ments are now be­ing made at the end of this fis­cal year (2026) is a di­rect re­flec­tion of the con­tin­ued ad­vo­ca­cy and pres­sure brought to bear on both the Min­istry of Fi­nance and Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion by TTUTA and, most im­por­tant­ly, by the mem­ber­ship,” the as­so­ci­a­tion said.

The Min­istry of Fi­nance had pre­vi­ous­ly said tech­ni­cal process­es were re­quired to de­ter­mine the ex­act amounts owed to in­di­vid­ual teach­ers.

TTUTA said it would con­tin­ue press­ing the Gov­ern­ment on oth­er out­stand­ing is­sues af­fect­ing ed­u­ca­tors, in­clud­ing school in­fra­struc­ture and safe­ty, the re­new­al of con­tracts for Busi­ness Op­er­a­tions As­sis­tants and the rein­tro­duc­tion of the Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme.

Mean­while, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has re­spond­ed to TTUTA’s con­cerns about safe­ty at San Juan North Sec­ondary School by or­der­ing emer­gency works to strength­en the school’s rear perime­ter fol­low­ing Thurs­day’s break-in. The min­istry said MTS had been en­gaged to ad­dress an iden­ti­fied vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, while its safe­ty unit re­views se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols and as­sess­es whether fur­ther mea­sures are need­ed.