Teachers Scheme of Service to delay –Govt

Teachers Scheme of Service to delay –Govt

AL-MAHDI SSENKABIRWA

KAMPALA.Teachers in public schools will have to wait for a little longer to benefit from the teacher service of scheme after government announced that the programme will not implemented this financial year citing financial constraints.

Speaking to Daily Monitor yesterday, the assistant Commissioner Secondary Education, Mr Francis Agula said they are currently focusing on ensuring that more teachers access the payroll.

Currently, Uganda has only 160,000 teachers on the government payroll of which 135,000 are in primary schools.

 “The teachers scheme of service was supposed to start this ending financial year but since free A’level education was introduced at the same time, much of the funds went on recruitment of new teachers,” he said adding “But it is in our activity plan as a ministry and if funds are available we shall roll it out next financial year because we know failure to do that will further demoralise our  teachers.” 

Last year, government had promised to put aside Shs40billion to kick start the scheme.

However, despite putting much focus on recruitment of teachers, Mr Agula said they had also failed to hit the 5000 target under the Universal Post O’Level Education and Training programme introduced last year.

“We still have only 1000 (teachers) who were recruited last year and even though  the programme  has entered  its second year with increased enrollment  ,we can’t do much due to limited funding,” he said

Government has since 2010 been planning to introduce the teachers  scheme of service to enable classroom teachers who have furthered their education and acquired higher qualification get promotions .

This means, if the scheme is rolled out teachers with higher academic credentials will be put at higher salary scales than their colleagues with lower qualifications. Teachers who have invested in upgrading have always complained that their salaries are pegged to the levels at which they teach and not their qualifications.

A total of 4000 proposed beneficiaries are in primary schools and another 1000 in secondary schools will benefit.

Lack of career advancement opportunities has been one of the major complaints among Ugandan teachers for several decades. The scheme of service was drafted in 2005 by the Education Service Commission but has since failed to take off . If implemented, the promotions will depend on the number of years one has worked as well as their academic qualifications. Under the  proposal, a primary school teacher, who possesses  a Grade Three teaching certificate, would be called an Education Assistant (EA) and the lowest paid with a salary scale of U-7. 

Seniority  will  push one to the rank of Senior Education Assistant (SEA), and later to Principle Education Assistant (PEA). 

At the secondary level, Grade Five teachers would be designated as Assistant Education Officers (AEO) while graduate teachers  will be  Education Officers (EO), earning the same salary as their counterparts in primary.  

Experience and a Master’s degree will push one to the rank of Senior Education Officer (SEO), then Principal Education Officer (PEO), putting one at  the same salary scale as a deputy or head teacher.