Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"We're trying to change the system, reform the system modernize the system, update the system and so whenever you're doing that, whenever you're moving from these manual records to digitalization, there are challenges, we acknowledge that. And yes we've been having constant discussions with the BNTU about this issue so obviously, there's nobody at the Ministry of Education or at the government of Belize that doesn't want teachers to get their salaries, I mean, obviously that's a priority for us. More than 70% of the budget of the Ministry of Education is about teachers' salaries so there's no question about our commitment to ensuring that our teachers are paid. It's a process and it's a bureaucratic process and we've been trying to address that. I don't want to cast blame on anybody, the reality is that it involves not only the Ministry of Education, it involves managing authorities and it also involves some personal responsibility as well on the part of teachers submitting documents to their managing authority, it's a process that you have to follow and so in some of these cases, there was a lack of documentation because we didn't get the information from the managing authorities, when you check with them, they say well we're still trying to get it from the teacher, so my point is that we have to fine ways of streamlining that process and I'm very optimistic and very hopeful that with the digitization taking place, meaning we are entering all this manual records into stored material, data, that yes, we're going through some difficult times not, teething pains, but once that process is completed for future teachers and future administrations."