By Spy Uganda
H.E Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has ordered striking teachers to go back to classes and teach as government finds ways of solving their issues.
The President revealed these after meeting leaders of the Uganda National Teacher’s Union (UNATU) in their regional clusters at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds Monday afternoon.
”We have a strategy and no one should disrupt us. We are aware of the issues and we are committed to handling them. Therefore, my advice to the teachers is that they should go back and teach,” said Museveni.
Museveni assured teachers that while government acknowledges their issues, it’s also aware of salary issues from other workers; the army, Police officers, among others who are equally important to the growth and development of this country.
He adds that although the Arts teachers insist that government should use the available resources to improve salaries across the board, it does not solve the salary issue but can instead bleed more strikes.
”We have provided a position as government and pledged to competitively remunerate workers guided by a science-led strategy. This does not mean we have forgotten others, but we are choosing to prioritise the few and others can come later. We must finish one problem at a time.”
The current strike resulted from the government’s decision to increase the pay for science teachers nearly by 300 percent in disregard of their colleagues in arts and humanities. The increment saw the government increase the pay for graduate and grade V science teachers to Shillings 4 million and Shillings 3 million up from Shillings 1.1 million and Shillings 796,000 respectively.
With over 120,000 teachers dropping chalk and refusing to attend lessons, the government hurriedly called for a dialogue meeting over the weekend to find a quick solution. Both President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Kataaha Museveni attended the meeting.
If it is to be distributed equally across the board to the 169,000 teaching staff, it means that each teacher would get an additional Shillings 46,800/- per month. It should be noted that UNATU has already proposed a salary raise plan for all teachers and other staff. According to UNATU’s draft, secondary school and primary head teachers should receive Shillings 10 million and Shillings 4.5 million respectively.
UNATU is also pushing the government to pay shillings 4.8 million to graduate science teachers and shillings 4.5 million to those teaching arts and humanities. They are also advocating for a Shillings 1.35 million minimum wage for primary school teachers. However, our reporter has also learned that President Museveni has already proposed a minimum pay of Shillings 3.5 million for art teachers.
