Are you a stakeholder in the current standoff between our teachers and our Ministry of Education? Perhaps I should state the obvious: we are all stakeholders in the current standoff. We all fall into one or more categories: teacher, teachers’ union, school, parent, employer, ministry of education, government of Antigua and Barbuda, and regular citizen. Yes, all of us are stakeholders.
There is so much at stake! Teacher satisfaction, student learning, children’s safety, competent graduates, ready-to-work new entrants to the labour market, parents worried about their children during the day, a worsening bureaucracy, increased mistrust in the political administration and in the overall system of governance, and the possibility of further micro-management by the political directorate.
Speaking to members of the teaching fraternity, the heart of the current strike lies in the incomplete disbursement of retroactive payment due to TVET teachers for annual lab coat allowances and ex gratia payments for some Heads of Department, dating back to 2018, based on the collective bargaining agreement reached in 2024.
Specific to the issue at hand the communique from the Antigua and Barbuda Union of Teachers dated March 7 2025 indicated “If all outstandingallowances, namely, Allowances for Technical Vocational Teachers for the period 2018 – 2024, Travel and Telephone Allowances for Principals and Deputy Principals for the period 2018 – 2023, and the outstanding Ex-gratia payment for Head of Department for the period 2018 – 2021, are not settled in their entirety by the end of the last work day of April 2025, it will engage in industrial action until said settlements are attained.”
Based on every indication, the government did not meet the deadline for complete payment as per the union’s correspondence. The process had begun. Examination of the process indicates that the payments were being processed in annual batches based on the documentation moving from the MOE to the Treasury. Payments were being made in an ongoing process.
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