Private school, part-lecturers teachers need urgent support

What you need to know:

  • Some private school teachers have often been compelled to deny their profession so that they can be given food from government.
  • The distribution of food was restricted to Kampala and Wakiso and parts of Mukono District. However, the issue of the teachers is a national concern now yet food has not been distributed throughout the country.

Many of students in Uganda are in private schools. This means there many private school teachers who are suffering because they have not been paid salary for more than two months that schools have been closed as a measures to curb the spread of coronavirus.

Many private schools pay teachers as and when they teach, which happens when schools are open and running normal programmes. Now that schools are closed, these teachers do not get paid.

Therefore, there is an urgent need for government to support private school teachers as well as part-time staff at universities, given that it is not clear when schools and universities will reopen.

While teachers in many private schools earn meagre pay, it is worse now that they are earning nothing at all.

By the time the President closed all educational institutions in the country in March, some parents had not paid or had not completed paying fees hence the disadvantage. So private school owners could not find money to pay their teachers.

On the other hand, many parents were not able to pay fees as schools were abruptly closed as part of the measures to prevent the spread of Corona-19.

Many of these teachers depend on the salary schools pay them to feed their families, pay rent, foot bills for treating members of their families, as well as utilities bills.

Moreover, many of these teachers couldn’t travel back to their villages given that the lockdown was announced and no movement was allowed. Today, teachers are suffering as they cannot afford to take care of themselves and their families now.

Private school teachers are facing emotional stress emanating from the dire situation they are living in. Worse still, some of these teachers have been waiting for the government food distribution team to reach their homes in vain.

This was worsened by the announcement that teachers are not in the vulnerable category even when they are not paid by government.

Some private school teachers have often been compelled to deny their profession so that they can be given food from government.

The distribution of food was restricted to Kampala and Wakiso and parts of Mukono District. However, the issue of the teachers is a national concern now yet food has not been distributed throughout the country.

Bruhan Byaruhanga,
Kampala