KINGSTON, Jamaica— Despite the Ministry of Education’s promise to settle outstanding summer school payments to teachers by October 29, some of the educators reportedly still have not received a dime.

One teacher who had participated in the Recover Smarter — National School Learning and Intervention Plan has come forward stating that she and others within Region two have not been paid up to Monday.

The teacher, who wished to remain anonymous, explained that she has tried on many occasions to contact the ministry in order to get answers and an approximate date for payment but has only been given the runaround.

“I contact the ministry and other relevant personnel about same on multiple occasions and I have only experienced being connected to many different parties who gave me evasive and vague responses pertaining to it so even now I can’t get a definitive answer to say ‘okay it will be made by xyz time’ despite the statements that the ministry made publicly,” she said.

“I have checked my account up to (Monday) morning and nothing is there. Persons that I have worked with haven’t received payment either. I know it cannot be anything pertaining to documentation because if that was the case I would have been contacted a long time ago so it’s not documentation,” the teacher added.

She shared with OBSERVER ONLINE that she is expecting a payment of approximately J$90,000 to J$100,000 for teaching during summer school and stated that this non-payment has had an effect on her.

“It has affected me tremendously. We are adults, we all have bills to take care of. When I signed up for this, yes I signed up for my students and we would have sacrificed our summer holiday in service of our students but also with the expectation that the ministry would have paid us in a timely manner,” she shared.

The Ministry of Education did not respond to OBSERVER ONLINE queries up to publication time.

Since the conclusion of the summer programme, which ran from July 5 to August 19, the ministry has indicated on different occasions that payment would be made. The latest of which was last Friday where the statement was given that “teachers and affected staff in schools should be paid no later than October 29”.

READ: Education Ministry moves to clear outstanding payments to school staff by October 29

“When they sent out the statement about requesting workers they didn’t make it seem as if it would be this difficult to be compensated by them. Now you are there and you are wondering if they are even going to pay you,” the disgruntled teacher said.