A government scholarship beneficiary, who was getting half pay between 2021 and 2022 after the university where she studied froze her degree because it was owed money by the education ministry, is now in further limbo after her retroactive salaries have been withheld by the school, despite directives issued by the ministry from April last year.

The university graduate, who was among 100 students to, in 2017, successfully bag the Ministry of Education/University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech) annual full-tuition technical and vocational education scholarships, was employed to an all-girls’ school in St Andrew and taught information technology at the grades 7-11 level, electronic document preparation and management for Grade 10.

The degree, however, was not released until February 2022 when the ministry cleared its outstanding balances with UTech. However, according to the now 26-year-old teacher, despite the ministry in April of that year indicating via letter that she was now classified as a trained teacher and as such qualified for the full salary, the school has not acted.

“Because of the fact that UTech had held on to my degree I was getting pre-trained salary, which is half pay. When the degree was released and I reached out to the bursar of the school she told me the ministry would have to send them a correspondence. MOE (Ministry of Education) sent the letter on April 11 with the retroactive sums I should be paid. I am still yet to receive that money,” the teacher told the Jamaica Observer.

The letter from the ministry, dated April 11, 2024, addressed to the chair of the school board and copied to the principal and the bursar, said; “Dear Sir/Madam, please be advised that having obtained a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Technology, Jamaica, Miss (name withheld) is now classified as a trained teacher and should be paid salary per annum as follows: 2022/02/28 $1,411,420.00 (and) 2022/04/01 to 2022/08/31 $2,520,078.00”.

“I have gone to the school on two occasions last year, both times I was told the bursar wasn’t there. She has stopped taking my calls. The only feedback I have received is that the calculations have not been done and they cannot give me a time but they are working on it. I have been getting that runaround since the letter was first sent in April,” the teacher, who has since resigned from the school, told the Observer on Monday.

Communication from the principal sent via e-mail in October last year in response to a query from the teacher about unpaid retroactive fees simply said, “Your e-mail has been received. I wanted to take a moment to address the delay regarding your retroactive pay. We understand that this payment is important to you and we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused. We continue to ask for your patience.”

According to the young educator, the school had initially disputed that it owed her outstanding salaries until the letter was sent from the ministry, indicating that she qualified for full salary as a trained teacher for the entire period she was employed.

“You got your degree after you resigned from [the school],” said one of the multiple messaging threads between the bursar and the teacher seen by the Observer.

In January 2022, the batch of 100 students who had been affected by the strained scholarship arrangement, speaking to the Observer through a representative, said they were earning $65,000 per month after four years of study as their employers were unwilling to pay them their full salaries unless they could present their degrees. A full salary, the Observer was told at the time, was about $120,000 per month after deductions.

“Going into this new term, we have to be tightening our budgets further and continue to take on extra jobs to make a more substantial living, such as through tutoring ventures. But even so it puts more stress on us as new teachers. Especially with the fact that school is now reopened, and we will be required to travel, et cetera, more expenses will be at play,” one beneficiary told the Observer at the time.

“It is our hope that the ministry will act more quickly in resolving the payments at UTech so that we can receive our degrees,” the teacher said.

Clearing that hurdle, however, the individual noted, would not be the end of the road for the group.

“The next step would be to send it to the ministry for acknowledgement and processing for our salaries to be increased which, I am being told, based on experiences shared by teachers, may be another trial. We are still resolute that the ministry ought to take better care of its workers. Many of us are passionate about the profession and really guiding young minds in this new era of teaching and learning. But I am afraid that if no improvements are made on the side of the ministry, our passions will be stifled and other professions may be considered,” the educator stated at the time.

“We get disheartened at times when we constantly hear of the mismanagement of funds in the ministry. We just honestly want to have the best chance of establishing our livelihood. Statistics show from time to time that not a lot of students get a chance to study in university, much more make it out successfully. We have toiled and worked hard towards achieving our dreams and we just want to make it,” added the young educator.