Revisit salary enhancement plan for teachers

By Raymond Asare Owot

The headlines in one local daily of March 27, 2018 titled:: "Doctors, Teachers Get Huge Pay Raise" was a hugely welcomed piece of news to these categories of employee since the Government of Uganda last increased salaries of civil servants across the board in the 2013/2014 FY.

However, reading inside one discovers that only the teachers of science subjects were considered. Still it is great news because salary increment has become such a very rare thing indeed to government employees despite the skyrocketing cost of living.

If the figures are correct then come July or so Grade V and graduate science teachers will get sh1,728,007 and sh2,000,000 per month. respectively. The deputy teadteacher in the same school will get sh1,767,633 per month, just a little above the Grade V teacher, who does not qualify to hold his/her post. The Head of that school will get sh2,050,000 per month., just marginally above the graduate science teacher. In other words science teaching has been equated to the overall administration of the school which actually includes the management of science teaching itself.

It is true that science teaching is facing big challenges in all schools in the country, but to me the pay of the science teacher is not the most crucial amongst them, I being a teacher of science subjects (Biology and Physical Education) notwithstanding. This is partly because no amount of money is ever enough for any person; and it is not to say that the problem of emoluments of science teachers should not be addressed. It should be and should have been done so many years ago.

But looking at the figures above, it is not difficult to foresee the disharmony that these emoluments will create in our schools. If the Arts subjects teachers remain at their current pays of sh472,079 (Grade V) and sh601,341 per month (graduate) then every month the grade V science teacher will earn a whooping sh1.3m more than his/her Arts counterpart and sh1.4m for the graduates. How can these two persons teach in the same school, teach the same classes and share the same staffroom?

Even in schools there is a hierarchy in the administration, akin to the rank systems in the forces, and with appropriate pre-determined differential emoluments system: the subject teacher, class teacher, head of department, director of studies, deputy headteacher and the headteacher in that ascending order. One officer supervises all those below him/her. Now, how can the deputy headteacher supervise the science teacher who earns much more than him/herself?

Furthermore, which salary will the deputy headteachers who teach science subjects get? Will they be allowed to opt for the bigger salary of the science teacher, that actually is not their scale or be tied to the deputy headteacher's lower salary? In the latter case what will happen to the salary of a science teacher who will be appointed on promotion to the deputy headteacher? Will he/she be required to revert back to the lower deputy headteacher's salary?

The headteacher is the overall authority in the administrative hierarchy of the school, answerable to the Board of Governors and the Commissioner of Education. The Government should make him/her feel so. Under no circumstance whatsoever should any teacher in the school get a salary more than half of what the Headteacher earns, and more than three quarters of what the Deputy Headteacher gets, meaning that if the Science Teacher is at sh2m per month then the Headteacher must get above sh4m per month. This is because part of the challenges that Headteachers and their deputies face in their day to day administration of their schools is managing the staff and even more so these days, managing the science teachers. In the event that this heavy one-sided raise is implemented these teachers are going to be untouchables in schools.

Currently the greatest challenge that is facing the teaching of science education in secondary schools in the country is not the teacher's pay as I said above but rather the lack of these teachers in schools. Teachers of science subjects are very few in Uganda. For instance, according to the SESEMAT Regional ToTs' report presented to headteachers of Mid Western (Bunyoro) region, by 2015 there was not a single teacher of chemistry on government payroll in all the secondary schools in Buliisa district. Currently there are only three teachers of physics and mathematics on payroll for all the eight government aided secondary schools in Kagadi district.

There are no longer ‘school teachers' of physics, chemistry, biology or mathematics; we have ‘district teachers' because a single teacher in any of these disciplines teaches in all the schools in the district. Such a teacher does not teach! He/she is jumping from one school to another. He/she has no time to interact with the students outside the classroom, where I want to say, more and better teaching takes place than in the classroom, hence the need for the teacher to remain in his/her school all the time.

The Government must, therefore, focus its attention and channel its energy and resources into ensuring that many more teachers of science subjects are trained. There should also be some sort of affirmative action taken in favour of Science Teachers other than or on top of a huge pay raise. A simple and cheaper example would be ensuring an automatic appointment and posting, on registration, for every teacher of science subjects who qualifies from the NTC or graduates from any university. When every school has these teachers we shall have ‘school' and not ‘district' science teachers. They will have nowhere to part-time and therefore will stay in their schools; the children will then see more of their teachers who will help them to perform better.

Another excellent way of improving science education in schools is to avail them with laboratory equipment and chemicals plus other essential materials and ICT hard and software to teach sciences in schools; most of which the costs are beyond the schools' means to purchase. I am happy that recently the government did that, and the results are beginning to show. My school was supplied with a science kit in 2014 and using it we are beginning to achieve better results in the examinations: better credits and even distinctions in some of the science subjects including the dreaded Chemistry, something which was unheard of before in this school.

Generally the Government must increase funding to its schools. Since 2007 when Universal Secondary Education was introduced the funding has remained the same at sh41,000 per term for each student at ordinary level. This is the masterpiece! The insensitivity which our leaders have to the ever rising cost of every single thing in the country is amazing. Without any commensurate increase in funding we must never expect any improvement in the performance of any entity, education inclusive.

There is a bigger problem which is brewing in our education system. We have a group of teachers, of all subjects, who have upgraded from Grade V to graduate teachers. They continue to receive Grade V teacher salaries because they have never been appointed graduate teachers. Some have served in this capacity for more than fifteen years and many have even retired.

This group of teachers forms the majority in staff of most schools now, and to say that they are disgruntled is to use an understatement. One can imagine their situation. You teach a person for six years in a school, he/she goes to university and after three years graduates and comes back to teach in the same school, but now he/she is going to earn four times more than you. Let us take pity on our teachers.

We gladly welcome the new initiative; but the Government must carefully weigh out the benefits against the negative effects and put in place measures to mitigate any undesirable consequences. The word science should not blind us off from the glaring potential retrogressive effects of such a noble cause.

The writer is the headteacher of St. Adolf Tibeyalirwa Secondary School, Muhorro,

Kagadi District