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Days af­ter TTUTA raised con­cern about an ap­par­ent in­ter­rup­tion in free coun­selling for teach­ers, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has made it clear that no user fees have been in­tro­duced for its Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (EAP).

In a state­ment is­sued on Fri­day, the Min­istry said fund­ing for the EAP was al­lo­cat­ed in the Fis­cal 2026 Bud­get and teach­ers are not re­quired to pay any fees—in­clud­ing the re­port­ed $450 per coun­selling ses­sion—to ac­cess min­istry-pro­vid­ed ser­vices.

While it ac­knowl­edged that men­tal health and psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port are crit­i­cal to staff well-be­ing, the Min­istry said any coun­selling arranged out­side min­istry-ap­proved mech­a­nisms should not be viewed as a re­place­ment for em­ploy­er-sup­port­ed ser­vices.