As many a parent knows by now, children will be concluding their first school term of the year this week.
While those in other areas will have school reports with exam results to present, the situation will be different in Buikwe district. That is after teachers there went on strike two weeks ago to protest the nonpayment of two month's salaries.
When we visited one of the affected schools, Baptist PS in Wakisi division, Buikwe last week, the pupils there were preoccupied with games such as rope skipping as well as hide and seek, after their teachers failed to show up at school.
The situation was the same in the divisions of Nyenga, and Njeru. Meanwhile, the teachers gathered outside the Njeru municipality offices to demand their salaries from district authorities.
Billy Ssemusa, the chairman of the Uganda National Teachers’ Union, was on hand to explain the situation.
“We have put down chalk and decided to seek the town clerk’s address on salary arrears we’ve faced in the month of January and March,”Semusa said. “It is examination [time] and our teachers have vowed not to give exams to the pupils if concerned authorities fail their mandate of paying us.”
Martin Mukwana, the director of Studies at Nyenga Boys primary school, sympathized with the aggrieved teachers, arguing that it was not possible to compel the teachers to set exams for the pupils.
“[It is dangerous] to our pupils if we let teachers who are stressed with loans to set and supervise exams.
It is better for them to be paid before handling the exercise,” Mukwana said. “Why should teachers be tossed about with calls of ‘come tomorrow all the time’ yet they also have families to sustain.”
When asked, the town clerk, Jamil Kasajja blamed the situation on a shortfall in the district’s third quarter budget.
“When payments were transferred from the district headquarters to municipality level, we failed to come up with the exact number of teachers and in the long run realized that we had made a shortfall of Shs 270m meant for salaries,” Kasajja said.
However, Kasajja complained that some of the teachers had absconded from duty for almost two years only to reappear demanding for payment.
He said they were working to resolve the matter ahead of the next term. Njeru municipality has a total of 38 government-aided primary schools with 460 teachers on government payroll.
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