The Ministry of Education has reimbursed independent schools with funds due up to March 2014 in the wake of a controversy in the media.

Times of Malta had reported on Tuesday that nine independent schools were owed hundreds of thousands of euros after the government failed to honour an agreement to cover the salaries of learning support assistants..

In some cases, the last payment was made in January and since then a bill of some €600,000 had accumulated.

In a reaction, the Ministry of Education had explained that reimbursements to independent schools to cover LSAs' salaries were  paid on receipt of invoices by the respective schools and once the necessary internal verifications were  made. To this effect, the ministry was  processing such claims and issuing related payments.

The ministry said delays were compounded by invoices which were submitted very late by a number of schools, leading to a derailment in the financial process of this procedure.”

The Independent Schools Association in a reaction today said it was surprised by the ministry’s comment.

“The ISA strongly affirms that this claim is not reflective of the general current standpoint of its member schools and equally strongly feels that it should have no bearing whatsoever on the late payment of the reimbursements due to its schools.”

It said that as a result of its efforts over the past months, earlier this week all its member schools were paid reimbursements until March 2014. 

A meeting requested by the ISA with Education Minister Evarist  Bartolo and high-ranking ministry officials was held yesterday afternoon. They discussed the issue and agreed on a form for the submission of reimbursement returns common to all schools in order to standardise procedures and facilitate and expedite processing.

It  was further agreed that a substantial amount of the funds still due to the schools would be settled by the ministry by the end of  this year.  Reimbursement payments thereafter would be made by the ministry on a timely  basis.