Some substitute teachers not paid for second month in a row

For the second month in a row some substitute teachers in Northern Ireland have not been paid.

In September, the Education Authority apologised to substitute teachers who were not paid as expected.

It confirmed about 300 teachers have not been paid in October either due to problems with an online system.

The Education Authority (EA) announced later on Wednesday that interim payments would be made to those affected by 25 October.

Earlier, the NASUWT union said it had been "inundated" by teachers in "extreme distress" over the missed payments.

The EA said it was working to address issues with the system.

Schools can book substitute teachers through an online system called the Northern Ireland Substitute Teacher Register (NISTR) which is run by the EA.

The register was updated and relaunched in August just before the start of the new school year but some schools and substitute teachers have since reported problems with the system.

The NASUWT said teachers "need to pay rent, make mortgage payments buy fuel and feed children".

"The cost-of-living crisis is impacting teachers across Northern Ireland, but the impact has been worse on our supply teachers who not only do not have guaranteed work, but it appears they no longer have guaranteed pay for that work," Justin McCamphill, NASUWT national official for Northern Ireland, said.

"Fixing this issue and paying these teachers before the end of the week must be the number one priority for the minister, the department and the Education Authority."

Justin McCamphill, from NASUWT, said the union had been "inundated" by teachers in "extreme distress"

Two substitute teachers outlined their concerns on BBC Radio Ulster's The Nolan Show on Wednesday.

Sinead, who is caring for her mother who has cancer, said she had not received a proper wage since July.

"I have been in the same school and since the new NISTR has come into play, it's just been a shambles," she added.

"Apparently I am not on any system to be paid and I was on hold yesterday for an hour and a half on the phone to NI Direct, NISTR, the DE [Department of Education] and Waterside House and no-one can give me any advice, no-one knows who to pass me to to give me any advice."

She said her school's secretary was told Sinead was not signed up to the system, despite the fact she received some payment through it in September.

'Rock and a hard place'

Timothy, another substitute teacher, did not receive payment in September for August.

The EA said this was because he had been on a fixed-term contract until the end of August and therefore payments would have been duplicated.

But Timothy said he did not understand why he was not paid in October for his September shifts.

"I would like someone to take accountability and responsibility for what's going on," he said.

"We are substitute teachers, we work and we don't get paid, if we don't work, we don't get paid.

"We can't go out and strike or anything like that, because we won't get paid.

"As from today, we are stuck between a rock and a hard place."

'Challenges'

In a statement to The Nolan Show, the EA said there were four reasons why about 300 teachers did not receive their salary on 18 October as they should have done.

These were:

• Their booking was not signed off by the school prior to the payroll deadline

• The Department of Education have not received their bank details to allow a payment to be made

• They are not live on the NISTR system

• Some supply teachers were in contract until 31 August and cannot be paid again for August dates as this would be a duplicate payment

The EA said initial issues with the NISTR had been "largely ironed out and it is operating efficiently" but there were still some challenges.

"To address these issues we have provided live training and recorded training sessions for schools and teachers on the appropriate use of the system including how to make 'vital profile updates' to ensure teachers are visible to schools on the system," it said.

It added that support resources had been made available on the NISTR website.