Involve teachers in comprehensive public servants pay review process

What you need to know:

  • I would request that if possible, the President invites the teachers with study leave documents, looks at their schemes of work, lesson plans, records of work and directs the ESC to appoint us before the Salary Review Commission completes its work in November.

I read in the newspapers that the government is working on a comprehensive salary policy for all public servants in the country to address disparities in the current structure.
But the question is, has any teacher been involved in that process? Using only Public Service or the largely greedy Members of Parliament who want to set their own pay will not help the teachers!

Look at the attached study leave with pay from Education Service Commission (ESC). Teachers in this category registered as graduate teachers 15 years or more ago yet they are still being paid a salary of Grade V teacher because the ESC has not given them the graduate appointments.
How are these teachers going to benefit from the new government salary policy to be released soon?

The President was recently in Moroto District where he addressing teachers and it seems nobody told him about the issue of the appointments. Moreover, the new government pay policy seems to be focusing on workers who are already well paid.
Let the President, who appoints ESC, or the Parliament that they report to, educate the ESC officials about government standing orders and why one with a study leave should be a priority while appointing new graduate in-service teachers.

I would appeal to the President to first consider ESC appointments for the long-serving underpaid teachers before he looks at people who are already earning millions of shillings. I would even be happy if a presidential directive is given to pay some of us from 2003 because I have never stopped working and the difference between Grade V salary and graduate salary is about Shs200,000.

The apparent neglect of the low earners in Public Service, especially the teachers, among others, is one of the reasons Mr Museveni’s loss of popularity.
I would request that if possible, the President invites the teachers with study leave documents, looks at their schemes of work, lesson plans, records of work and directs the ESC to appoint us before the Salary Review Commission completes its work in November.
Samuel Ouma,
[email protected]