TTUTA warns teachers may not receive new salaries in January

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion has warned that teach­ers may not re­ceive their new salaries in Jan­u­ary 2026, de­spite ear­li­er as­sur­ances from the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer.

In a me­dia re­lease is­sued to­day, TTUTA pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe said the union met with the CPO on De­cem­ber 11, 2025, dur­ing which the CPO in­di­cat­ed he had re­ceived in­struc­tions to in­form TTUTA that all mem­bers of the Teach­ing Ser­vice would re­ceive their new salaries as part of their Jan­u­ary 2026 pay­ments and con­tin­u­ing.

Ashe said it has since come to the at­ten­tion of TTUTA that no in­struc­tions have been is­sued to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s Fi­nance De­part­ment to cal­cu­late and im­ple­ment the new salaries.

Ac­cord­ing to TTUTA, the Cab­i­net Note re­quired to grant ap­proval for the pay­ment of the salaries was not ac­cept­ed.

The union said this means it is very pos­si­ble that teach­ers will not be paid their cor­rect new salaries un­less the Cab­i­net Note is re­sub­mit­ted and ap­proved, al­low­ing the CPO to au­tho­rise the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to be­gin cal­cu­la­tions and pro­cess­ing.

Ashe de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as to­tal­ly un­ac­cept­able and said TTUTA is de­mand­ing that the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance ad­here to the agreed date of Thurs­day Jan­u­ary 22, 2026, for the pay­ment of the new salaries to all mem­bers of the Teach­ing Ser­vice.