Four Apac head teachers demoted over indiscipline

At least four head teachers in Apac District have been demoted over alleged absenteeism and abuse of alcohol.
The affected head teachers are Mr Mathew Ayo, Mr Moses Alele Anok, Mr Henry Alele and Mr Constantine Tyan.
The head teachers were from Universal Primary Education (UPE) schools.
The District Education Officer (DEO) of Apac, Mr Billy Okunyu, confirmed the development.

He said the decision was taken to give chance to the head teachers to learn and transform under the supervision of other team leaders since they had failed to demonstrate good leadership.
“We warned them several times but they could not change and this is the last chance we are giving them. We shall call them and ask them one by one to choose the school they are comfortable working under its head teacher then we shall post them to their respective choice,” the DEO said on January 30.

However, Mr Tyan said he is due for retirement next year and is not bothered by the decision.
“I have served in many schools in Apac District for the last 30 years, so I need time to rest. I am comfortable with it (the decision to take him back to classroom) because I have even written to the DEO about the difficulties I was facing at Alado Primary School,” he said.
Mr Tyan headed Alado Primary School between 2015 and 2018 and the school did not post any candidate in Division One in that period.

Response
However, Mr Ayo, who headed Ayum Primary School from 2014 to 2015, said he does not know why he is being punished.
“I am not going to sit and watch my rights being abused for no good reason. We don’t know what we have done and we are many; two of us suffered frustration. I was appointed head teacher not class teacher. We were never even taken to any disciplinary committee,” Mr Ayo said.
He said the authorities are not respecting veteran head teachers, adding that he has already forwarded his complaint to the Chief Administrative Officer requesting to reinstate and deploy him to his position of head teacher.

Mr Ayo threatened to seek legal redress if his complaint is not attended to.
Attempts to contact Mr Moses Alele Anok and Mr Henry Alele were futile since their known phone numbers were not available by press time.
Mr Tom Superman Opwonya, the executive director of The Apac Anti-Corruption Coalition, a civil society organisation, said the education authorities have done the right thing.

“It’s true if they had realised earlier these head teachers would have pulled up their socks. You know when a child touches fire and is burnt they will never touch it again. If strong actions are taken on head teachers who ignoring their work of supervising teachers and seeing that studies are going on well, performance will improve in Apac District,” Mr Opwonya said on Sunday.
Apac District registered a total of 1,777 candidates for 2018 PLE, and according to the recently released results, the district had only 47 candidates in Division One, 840 in Division Two, 432 in Division Three, 280 in Division Four and 152 in Division U while 28 were in Division X.

The district inspector of schools, Ms Margret Oling, attributed the poor performance to inadequate staff caused by migration of a large number of teachers following the creation of Kwania District which became operational on July 1, 2018.
“The complaint was sent to the CAO and the Ministry of Education and the ministry accepted recruitment of more teachers in consultation with Public Service,” Ms Oling said.

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