Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves in his independence speech delivered a bundle of announcements in respect of public servants, police officers, nurses, and nursing assistants.
Gonsalves said nearly two months ago, the Cabinet decided that the 234 teachers and 159 public servants who are university graduates, who had submitted proof of their degree qualifications by September 30, 2025 and who were not as yet appointed [at]on the appropriate “Graduate” salary scale, will be appointed with effect from November 1, 2025.
Gonsalves said the officials are finalising all the administrative details in this regard.
“I expect that by mid-December 2025, if not before, their pay packets will reflect the salary enhancements consequential on such appointments. This will increase central government wage bill for the remainder of 2025 by $500,000 for public servants and $750,000 for teachers”.
Teachers and public servants who submitted their degree qualifications after September 30, 2025, will be appointed from January 2026.
The appointments of the graduate teachers will be in Grade F and E as applicable.
The resulting vacancies arising from these Graduate Teacher appointments (30 posts of Teacher II and 46 posts of Teacher III) will be put in place to accommodate the promotion of Teacher Is who satisfy the criteria.
As regards the public servants, those currently receiving the Graduate Allowance are to be appointed to the posts of Administrative Officer I and II in accord with the decision of the Cabinet in September 2025.
In respect of the Police Officers, Nurses, and Nursing Assistants, the payment of the Graduate Allowance will continue.
In order to enhance salaries of these categories, a formal Review of their salaries and allowances will be conducted beyond any negotiated increase between the government and the public sector unions for the three-year period 2026 to 2028 inclusive.
These categories of public employees (Police Officers, Nurses, Nursing Assistants) have peculiar chain-of-command issues to be accommodated in the application of Graduate appointments.
Gonsalves said this, in part, demands a formal Review.
“The Education Revolution has thrown up some fascinating anomalies particularly among these categories of professionals. Regarding the computation of Graduate Allowances for public servants and teachers there will be an immediate upward revision that will allow each university graduate to receive the equivalent of at least one full increment in the Grade G scale up to the maximum of the said grade. This is to take effect from November 1, 2025. I expect this increase will be in the pay packets of the relevant public servants and teachers by mid-December 2025”.
This massive, immediate alignments, realignments, reforms, appointments, and enhancement of graduate allowances will, in total, cost the Treasury $6 million for the remaining three months of 2025.
