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.  

Once the cheques are ready, the list of names is circulated via several platforms, including the internal union chat, the respective school chats, and lists sent to the respective school principals. Often, teachers’ names appear more than once because there is a cheque for each year to be collected.

At this juncture, the challenge is whether demonstrated intent and action are good enough.   Coming on the heels of a recent sit-in where the Union has already shown their stance if matters are not resolved in the interest of their membership, on the heels of being at the heart of the development of the nation’s most important assets, was there scope for a less strident approach?

The most interesting aspect of this situation is that, until the Minister of Education and the Prime Minister spoke out, this was a matter between teachers.  Teachers are now administrators and managers, teachers are now leading the industrial rights and protection process, and teachers are in the classroom and managing the plants.  All of whom are experienced in going the distance for the most valued human resource component, our children.  What could be the block in the system that prevents dialogue between the teachers on whichever side they sat/stood in this process?

And yes, there are partisan factors no doubt at play, however commonsense should be a key component given that this is our education sector.  It drives every other aspect of our society and if we cannot get this right then what can we expect.

Yes, the lists of the teachers whose cheques are ready received a wider than usual circulation. This is unfortunate and cannot be simply swept away. Does that override the fact that the payments are available and negate all the teachers sitting down to resolve and get back to the classroom?

And yes, our forever strident Prime Minister entered the chat.  If you led a nation where your education plant is not functioning for a week, while the process to pay moves forward, would you sit quietly? He never minces words, and I would expect the union to be equally ‘biting’ in response, a verbal firestorm if necessary, but not at the expense of inactive classrooms where students continue to be the biggest losers.

 It is not a matter of no payments in process. In the midst of month-end obligations across the entire government system, the last amounts owed as part of the 2024 agreement and last year’s agreement are also advanced.  

The sit-in comes at a time when final external examinations are in progress and students need support, when final preparations are in progress for end-of-year exams at all levels, and when matters are being actively addressed.  

It has never been a standard that unions are “all or nothing”, fixed state entities.   The issuance of ultimatums is a tool to activate action, to bring all to the bargaining table, to get movement on work to the done rather than a weapon to destabilise, an excuse to not to right by our students.

The education of our children should not be trampled when ‘elephants fight’.   I implore the teachers on all sides of this minefield to meet in their educators’ corner.   The former teachers who sit in the Ministry of Education as CEO, EOs, and subject heads, as well as the executive members of the ABUT.   Sit with each other, lay out where the process is, and find a workable pathway back to the classroom in the shortest possible time.  

Do not let such a vital matter fall to a political solution; show maturity as our educators, and lead the way.  The rest of us, the other stakeholders, watch and wait.