Africa-Press – Uganda. Many primary and secondary schools in Lyantonde District will have to wait a little longer to acquire the required number of staff needed.
This comes after the district authorities failed to fill vacant positions, a problem that has persisted for two years.
The district education officer, Mr Medard Byarugaba, said on Monday that the district currently has 331 teachers in 50 public primary schools against the required 479, creating a gap of 148 teachers.
The current teacher to pupil ratio, according to the Ministry of Education and Sports, is 1:53, which is not realised in the entire district.
At secondary level, Mr Byarugaba said the district has 154 teachers in the seven public secondary schools and one tertiary institution.
“We don’t have a staff ceiling yet but going with the recent established seed schools, government recruits 21 teachers in every seed school and this number of teachers is not reflected in all our current secondary schools,” he said during an interview.
This crisis has prompted some secondary school head teachers to contract private teachers to have all classes covered.
The district equally lacks substantive head teachers in primary schools as 60 percent of schools have caretakers who are classroom teachers.
Mr Byarugaba attributed this staffing gap to continuous halt on recruitment of staff by government and local governments, which according to central government directive, can only recruit new staff to replace those who have died or retired.
Ms Jane Frances Nakassi, the vice chairperson Lyantonde District, said the current crisis can only be solved by the Ministry of Public Service through lifting a ban on recruitment such that more teachers can be recruited.
“Most private teachers are not reliable because they do part-timing in many public schools. But even the few available government teachers also moonlight in private schools. We need to address this by recruiting enough permanent teachers in our schools,” she said.
Mr Muzamiru Kateregga, a councillor representing workers at the district, noted that the district has no defined staff ceiling as they still rely on the ceiling of their mother district, Rakai. Lyantonde was carved out of Rakai in 2006.
“Most of the challenges the district is grappling with, including staff ceiling, were inherited from Rakai District,” he said
Records from the education department show that the district has 21 primary schools, five government-aided secondary schools, and one tertiary institution.
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