The commitment by the government to enhance the salaries of teachers should be worked out with specifics in the intervening period and binding documents.
By Milton Emmy Akwam
Kampala – July 6, 2022: Uganda-government paid arts teachers are back to work weeks after laying down their tools over poor pay.
The teachers, for some reason, argued that their [current] pay is meager and cannot meet the current high cost of living.
Through their umbrella body, the Uganda National Teachers’ Union (UNATU), teachers have recollected their tools and are back to work.
The resumption follows UNATU’s meeting with President Museveni and his wife Janet Museveni [education minister] on July 4 at Kololo ceremonial grounds in Kampala.
Museveni told teachers that the NRM government has got a strategy and nobody should disrupt it. Before the Kololo meeting, several meetings had taken place and there was nothing like a consensus.
“We decided to suspend the industrial action as we continue to engage government for the good of our learners because we don’t want them to lose a lot, and the teachers themselves,” said UNATU General Secretary, Mr. Filbert Baguma after another three-hour closed-door meeting the association’s cluster leaders from different districts across the country, had after the engagement with the president, as reported by Daily Monitor.
On Wednesday, July 6, Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) welcomed the move taken by the government to dialogue with teachers through their umbrella, the Uganda National Teachers Union (UNATU).
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“…this just shows the magnitude of the situation and UPC has been on the forefront of calling for meaningful and constructive engagements of all stakeholders to cause for industrial harmony,” UPC spokesperson, Arach Oyat Sharon said at a weekly media briefing in Kampala.
According to UPC, in this situation, there is no loser, but the only winner is Uganda representing the government, teachers, and schools! “So we need to reconsolidate this victory for Uganda by doing everything possible that the agreements of such key meetings are effectively implemented in a truthful, equitable, and sustainable manner,” she added.
The commitment by the government to enhance the salaries of teachers should be worked out with specifics in the intervening period and binding documents, she noted, further saying, “Otherwise, we cannot afford to continue ignoring the plight of our teachers as well as other workers when we are working towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”
Speaker Anita directs the government
The speaker of Parliament Anita Annet Among has directed the government on teachers’ pay rise. In her communication during the plenary sitting on July 5, 2022, Among asked the Prime Minister, Robina Nabanjja to make a statement on the government’s intervention to harmonize the salaries of teachers.
“We need to have realistic immediate, medium and long-term intervention so that we can be able to resolve these issues, not doing things in an ad-hoc way,” she said.
In the same media briefing, about Anite’s directive, UPC said she is equally watching with “a very keen interest in the speaker’s call to the Prime minister” to explain to the assembly what specific plans the government has for the teaching fraternity.
“In the same vein, UPC urges all teachers to restrain themselves from carrying out a “silent industrial action”.
“This can be manifested in dodging classes, meager curriculum coverage, and taking sabbaticals without notice; since the government committed itself to harmonize Arts teachers’ salaries, let’s hope the teachers do their part in educating the next generation.”
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