By Andrew Irumba: The Ministry of Education and Sports has fired over 30,000 teachers in the ongoing verification and registration exercise which is expected to end in December 2019.
This was revealed by Dr. Jane Egau Okou the Commissioner in charge of Teacher Education and Instruction who said, dropped teachers had forged academic papers and appointment letters.
Okou warned that the affected persons are not allowed to teach in any school, adding that relevant authorities have been notified.
“Using our teacher management system, we are trying to weed out the unqualified teachers. So far, over 30,000 teachers across the country have been dropped. We hope that by December, everyone would have been registered. When we do that, we shall know the qualified teachers we have, then we shall fill the gap. Because there are many qualified teachers out there who do not have access to the payroll.”
She added that, it has been a process to halt out the unprofessional teachers because most of the dropped have been primary school teachers hired by District Service Commissions.
“We have known that they are there but we have not been able to get them before. This is one of the reasons we put in place the teacher registration exercise. We wanted to weed out these ghost teachers who are everywhere.”
Dr.Okou further added that unqualified teachers are one of the reasons why Uganda is still harvesting low learning outcomes.
“Teaching is not for anyone. Teachers are trained to make learning plans, to determine whether learners are learning and even how to put issue across. It’s not a matter of standing in front of class room and talking. These fake teachers are one of the reasons we have low learning outcomes,” she said.
Education Ministry Permanent Secretary, Mr Alex Kakooza Speaking to the press admitted that Uganda’s education sector still faces a challenge of unqualified teachers.
“We face a challenge of not having qualified teachers not just in primary schools but even in ECD centers. This is a serious issue that we trying to solve as a ministry,” he observed.
The teacher registration and verification exercise is expected to end in December 2019. So far, 80,000 teachers have registered.
Dr. Tony Mukasa Lusambu, the
Commissioner for Basic Education at the Education ministry, said teachers
should go ahead and register.
“I hereby encourage our teachers to register as first as possible. We want
every qualified teacher registered by December. That is the time we resume the
scheme of service, ensuring that we are rewarding only those teachers who went
through training.
