Time to deliver to the teachers

Oct 09, 2001

‘UPE has no future unless teachers are made to take their rightful place’

EVERYONE, including President Yoweri Museveni, sings the praises of Universal 1Primary Education (UPE), yet the teachers who make it work get absolutely no respect. Today, Uganda teachers are among the least appreciated and underpaid in the whole world. Here are just two examples of teachers trying to make their voices heard amidst the deafening silence from authority. In his letter-to-the-editor published on Monday in The New Vision, Tumusiime-Bamugyeya of Bushenyi wrote, “The amount of money in the increase for the classroom teacher is about sh10, 000 while it is sh110, 000 for head teachers. Classroom teachers are the source of knowledge and skills for our children. How can they pour out these values when they are in such a miserable state? What are the teachers representatives doing?” Another letter from someone whose name was withheld by request noted that sh97m in salary arrears for teachers had been released to Kiboga district, and “nothing has been realised by the teachers yet”. What is going on here is that on the one hand, teachers are terribly underpaid, and on the other, even the little owed them is delayed indefinitely. Just how does the Government expect teachers to implement the curriculum when their very livelihood is threatened by dire poverty? To put it another way; how serious is the government about implementing the UPE program when front-line workers are denied the very basic necessities of existence? Worldwide, even among the smallest nations, teachers’ welfare is part of the education reform package. In the city state of Singapore, teachers are treated with the utmost respect and, consequently, Singapore has one of the highest literacy rate in Asia and has been dominating international mathematics competitions since 1995. Here in the province of Ontario — one of the largest provinces in Canada — the conservative government of Premier Mike Harris has generally been anti-teachers over the last five years. However, the government has also worked hard to improve teacher’s salaries and general welfare, making Ontario teachers among the better paid in Canada. For example, the basic salary of a rookie teacher at the bottom of the salary scale (A0) working for the York Catholic District School Board (the author’s employer) is $28,378 per year. A teacher at the top of the salary scale (A4) with ten years of experience earns $67,673 per year. The point here is not so much to compare the salaries of Canadian and Uganda teachers as to suggest that teachers everywhere deserve better treatment — decent wages, prompt monthly pays, and good benefits comparable to similar careers. The problem is that Ugandan teachers carry the donkey load and get absolutely no respect. Class sizes in primary school threaten to pierce 100 pupils per teacher compared to 35 pupils per teacher in Ontario. Moreover, it’s a known fact that many Ugandan teachers actually spend money-out-of-pocket to buy the necessities of the trade — textbooks and equipment — just so that they can do their job. Young teachers who seek to upgrade their skills by enrolling in additional courses never see any returns on their investment. Those who retire from the profession are jettisoned like lepers with no retirement package and left to wallow in poverty in their declining years. That teachers actually get up every morning to go to work is perhaps the greatest miracle in the education business in Uganda. They should be wearing long faces and dressing in T-shirts that blare out angry words such as, I AM A TEACHER, WHERE IS MY MONEY! Instead, they quietly don their threadbare clothes and head out to work every day, rain or shine. That’s dedication to duty, and it should be rewarded. The time has come for the government of Uganda to either put up or shut up about how good UPE has been over the last several years. If UPE is that good, then how come you do not show appreciation to the teachers who throughout the year carry on the good fight against illiteracy and ignorance? Start by instituting direct pay so that salaries do not have to go through the sticky fingers of some corrupt district officials. Secondly, democratise the system by allowing teachers to form unions that can effectively negotiate salaries, benefits and take care of teachers’ general welfare. Finally, get rid of the layers of bureaucracy at the headquarters so that more decision-making process is carried at the district level. Only then can we say that UPE reform is a marvel that will lift Uganda into the 21st century.

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