New salary scheme to tackle teachers’ woes

Jan 08, 2006

TEACHING is perhaps one of the professions with the highest degrees of labour turnover. A host of factors are responsible for this phenomenon, but lack of upward growth within the profession is one of the major contributing factors.

By Irene Nabusoba
TEACHING is perhaps one of the professions with the highest degrees of labour turnover. A host of factors are responsible for this phenomenon, but lack of upward growth within the profession is one of the major contributing factors.
Only three steps and you have reached the peak of the profession. The entry level is classroom teacher, and then one can progress to deputy headteacher and finally headteacher. One cannot go further unless one quits the profession.
Teachers who invest in upgrading have always been frustrated because their salaries are pegged to the levels at which they teach and not their qualifications. This has been the subject of a big debate.
However, there is now light at the end of the tunnel if the proposed scheme of service by the Education Service Commission takes off. The proposal provides for growth even within the ranks of classroom teachers.
Sarah Mabangi, the commission’s principal policy analyst, says teachers have been complaining because much as they account for 68% of the public service, they have not had a scheme of service.
“There has been a problem of no promotional ladders and no standards set for training, but if we are to achieve education for all, teachers’ terms and conditions of service have to be enhanced,” says Mabangi.
Under the scheme, a primary school teacher, who should possess a Grade Three teaching certificate, will be called an Education Assistant (EA) with a salary scale of U-7, earning between sh115,000 and sh179,518 a month. Seniority can push one to the rank of Senior Education Assistant (SEA) at scale U-6, earning between sh192,800 and sh231,571. This is now likely to change, following President Yoweri Museveni’s directive that the salary for primary teachers be progressively raised to a minimum of sh200,000 a month.
“To move to SEA, one should have worked for at least six years and should have shown commitment and attained some other educational development programmes,” Mabangi reveals.
One can then become the Principle Education Assistant (PEA), falling in the same salary scale as the Deputy Headteacher (DH), who earns the salary of a Grade Five teacher.
“We assume that by then, one should have attained a diploma in primary education to be at the level of any other diploma holder in public service: U-5 (sh268,357-sh409,515),” Mabangi says.
A primary school headteacher shall be required to possess a degree in primary education and will be at scale U-4 (sh419,401-sh665,206), earning the same salary like any other graduate civil servant.
“We are stressing specialisation. We want someone to stay in a system and be motivated in the same system. We shall not only look at training. You must have experience at a certain post. To be a headteacher, you must have passed through the lower levels. That should at least reward our old teachers who have suffered for a long time,” she says.
At the secondary level, Grade Five teachers will be designated as Assistant Education Officers (AEO) while graduate teachers are Education Officers (EO), earning the same salary as their counterparts in primary.
However, seniority does not push Grade Five teachers to the next level until they have university degrees. Experience and a Master’s degree pushes you to the rank of Senior Education Officer (SEO), then Principal Education Officer (PEO), putting one in the same salary scale as a deputy or headteacher (sh663,145-sh841,093). To head or deputise a secondary school, one must have a Master’s degree and should have grown within the system.
“The system aims at keeping good, experienced teachers who often rush for administrative jobs because of the salaries attached,” Mabangi says.
While welcoming the scheme, teachers interviewed argue that the diploma of a graduate teacher should move with his salary scale even if s/he is teaching at a lower level.
“We should be paid higher because we spent money to attain those qualifications,” argues Stephen Musasizi, a graduate now teaching in a primary school.
Dr. John C. Muyingo, the headteacher Uganda Martyrs’ Secondary School Namugongo, says there is nothing like over-qualification in teaching. He says highly qualified teachers who choose to teach in lower level schools should certainly be paid higher.
“Here I am, a doctor in philosophy, heading a secondary school and I’m doing very well. I am sure I have added value to our education system. The Government should change the policy and encourage teachers to go to primary schools, especially upcountry where there are big shortages of teachers,” Muyingo advises.
Matthew Okot, the deputy general secretary Uganda National Teachers’ Union also says it is unfair for teachers of different qualifications to earn the same salary. However, the education ministry has ruled out the possibility of higher pay for diploma graduates who choose to teach at lower grades.
“What do you do for a doctor who decides to practice nursing?” asks minister Geraldine Bitamazire. “If the diploma and graduate teachers choose to teach in primary, they are doing it against our established principles and should not expect any higher pay. Grade Three teachers are the ones supposed to teach in primary schools,” she adds.
The ministry’s spokesperson, Aggrey Kibenge, describes it as ‘class suicide’ for a teacher to choose to teach below his or her qualification.
“You will not carry the privileges of your level there, so you have to settle for the salary of that level,” he says.
Nonetheless, the establishment of the scheme is a step in the right direction. The sooner it is implemented, the better.
Ends

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});