Private school teachers have come out to defend their counterparts in government schools by warning Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi and Education Minister Jessica Alupo against harassing teachers.
The coalition of Uganda private school teachers association Executive Director, Patrick Kaboyo calls upon the Mbabazi to consider teachers’ demands as serious business.
They note that threats, political statements and security deployment are not the solution to teachers’ demands but rational thinking, collective responsibility and setting priorities right.
The teachers under their umbrella organization the Uganda National Teachers Union are demanding for a 100% pay rise, considering the lowest earning teacher gets 250,000 shillings.
Kaboyo states that teachers have been patient and not involved in chaotic politics, noting that their silence should not be taken for granted. He adds that the teachers are being abused at the advantage of those whose own children do not go to UPE schools, and after school do not suffer the same plight as teachers.
Kaboyo notes that Mbabazi has been in charge of the country’s security for long and has enough machinery to apply to any threat, but not on teachers. He adds that Minister Alupo being a retired soldier should come to enforce discipline in the entire education sector other than working with security operatives to harass teachers.
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He calls on the Prime Minister and Minister Alupo to come to order and stop using their military orientation by ordering the district internal security officers and RDCs to force teachers to teach.
On Saturday, the Prime Minister issued a warning that all teachers who do not report to school effective Monday this week will be deemed to have resigned.
Mbabazi added that in order to keep the school system running, temporary staff with requisite qualifications will be hired.
However, Kaboyo says not every learned person can teach, since it requires special skills to handle children, master the curriculum and make learning plans. He adds that at the start of UPE, government failed to acquire qualified teachers and took whoever knew how to speak English. Until todate despite the different programmes and reforms, UPE still has many challenges.
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The private teachers thus recommend that the investment made to pay fuel, airtime, meals and any allowances by government officials monitoring schools be redirected to pay teachers salaries.
The teachers argue that the spirit and strength exhibited to supervise teachers on strike this month should be the same investment made to supervise education throughout the term since they now know that government has capacity to supervise.
They also recommend among others that teachers should be handled with civility to save the country from shame, uncalled for losses and poor academic results at the end of 2011 in all national examinations.
In spite of the continuous government threat, the majority of UNATU teachers are going on with their industrial action.
