Easing into retirement
Seychelles Pension Fund, Ministry of Education and a Psychologist from the Quality of Life Department within the Ministry of Family Affairs engaged with a group of 50 teachers reaching retirement age this year in an interactive meeting to discuss the way forward with regards to their retirement. The half-day session was held at the Ex School of maritime studies meeting room Mont Fleuri and was led by the SPF CEO Miss Nisreen Abdul Majid in the presence of officers from the Ministry of Education.
The meeting, a request made by a group of teachers contemplating retirement, provided stakeholders present with the opportunity to discuss the retirement process, the possibility of extending work life to access retirement benefits at a later date and the psychological preparations for retirement; an issue that is often overseen when discussing retirement. Participants were also privy to the new proposal to introduce a reduction factor within the retirement plan effective 2023. To reiterate the reduction factor is part of the sustainability plan for SPF, which started with the increment of pension contributions across the board for all members as of April 2022.
For the first time in its effort to enable members to make informed decisions regarding their retirement, SPF introduced a psychological component to its presentation. Dr. Jimmy Petrousse, Psychologist from the Department of Family Affairs, who engaged with members present on psychological issues important for members contemplating retirement. It was an opportune moment to bring in such new innovation to extend a wider outlook on pension issues. This falls right within the new campaign which SPF is launching to ease members into retirement, and the organisation looks to extend such partnership with other governmental bodies relevant in preparing and hosting retired people within the society.
On her part, Miss Abdul Majid, expressed her satisfaction to the initiative taken by the group of teachers and the Ministry of Education to organise themselves to generate much need information from SPF on such an important matter. ‘This is part of a wider communication program that SPF has been undertaking for a long time. As we meet with new target audience, SPF is better placed to ensure a more educated membership base’, said Miss Abdul Majid. Recently SPF has been very interactive with Post-Secondary institutions and even extended its session to prisoners who are soon to be released back into the society, to ensure that they take the opportunity to prepare themselves for retirement by making timely contribution towards their accounts at SPF.
