Government warns teachers against abandoning classes for reregistration exercise

State Minister for Higher Education Dr J C Muyingo. FILE PHOTO

What you need to know:

  • A recent circular released by the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Education Mr Alex Kaooza fixed the deadline for the teacher re-registration to May 31, 2019.

KAMPALA. The Ministry of Education and Sports has warned teachers against abandoning classes for the ongoing re-registration exercise for the Teacher Management Information System.
State Minister for Higher Education Dr J C Muyingo says the online registration exercise should not be an excuse to disrupt the normal learning programme where some teachers have reportedly abandoned classes in the guise of travelling to their former training institutions to have their respective academic documents certified before the online registration.

“Cases of teachers abandoning the learners at this crucial time is uncalled for. The online registration was supposed to be done by respective teachers at their own free time. We are following up this matter seriously to arrest the situation. The exercise is very important and has a time frame as per the guidelines but the learning process should not be interrupted. We are taking up the matter to ensure that the learning process in not interrupted,“ Mr Muyingo told this reporter.

In Luweero and Nakaseke districts, several teachers have reportedly absconded from duty in the past one week after travelling to their training institutions to get the certified copies of the academic transcripts, a requirement for all the documents to be entered in the teacher data system by way of online registration.

Mr Abbas Abdul Kawalya, a Primary School head teacher from Nakaseke District last week explained that it took him two days to have his respective documents certified at Kyambogo University because of the overwhelming turn-up of teachers for the certifying exercise.
“I did not take it into account that it would take me two days at one institution. I believe many of the teachers are going through the same challenge because of the deadline set by Ministry of Education,” he said.

The Ministry of Education and Sports in 2018 developed a teacher management information system which captures all data on qualified teachers in the Uganda Education System. To enable the Ministry accurately establish the actual number of qualified teachers in the system and ensure that only professional teachers are employed as required by the Education Act 2008.

Government tasked the teachers from both government and Private Schools to re-register online to have an online generated unique number that will identify each qualified teacher. Teachers are supposed to visit the website – www.tmis.go.ug for the registration.
Among the documents that a primary school teacher is supposed to present include O’ level pass slip and Certificate, Certified Grade III pass slip and certificate by the University/training institution, photocopy of national identity card and college identity card.
A recent circular released by the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Education Mr Alex Kaooza fixed the deadline for the teacher re-registration to May 31, 2019.

Information from the Ministry of Education indicates that some teachers who earlier registered had uploaded forged documents which were later detected and rejected. Some of the possible causes for the rejection of the documents included those that had not been identified by the training institutions where the affected teachers reportedly trained.