Africa-Press – Uganda. The State minister for Higher Education, Mr John Chrysestom Muyingo, has advised teachers to stay devoted and focused as the third term begins irrespective of salary disparities among them.
Speaking during a training workshop for secondary school head teachers at Kololo Secondary School in Kampala yesterday, Mr Muyingo reiterated government’s commitment to enhance Arts teachers’ salaries.
He said the third term is the most important session and advised head teachers to engage Arts teachers and motivate them.
“This term is very important, there shouldn’t be anything that disrupts it because it determines whether one is promoted or not. And you know how much the parents and government has invested in the education of the children,” Mr Muyingo said.
He explained that the government is committed to having highly motivated teachers, well trained, well paid and is going to enhance their salaries in a phased manner.
“We have limited resources but we are committed to enhance everybody’s salary to their satisfaction. Let’s do the work, ours is services to the country, it requires total commitment and dedication,” he said.
Mr Muyingo also advised head teachers to embrace research since the new curriculum requires creativity and skills.
The minister said during the two-day training, administrators would be equipped with skills that will help them to prevent strikes in schools and also be given knowledge about the new curriculum.
“While a big number of teachers have embarked on implementing the competence-based curriculum, many of them still refer to it as tiresome in terms of preparation and instruction materials. This attitude is affecting implementation of this programme,” he said.
In this financial year, government increased the salary of all science teachers, leaving out their Arts counterparts.
The monthly salary of a secondary school science teacher was increased from Shs2.5 to Shs4.2m, while a junior will get Shs2.2m, up from between Shs795,000 and Shs858,000.
In June, Art teachers went on strike over salary enhancement and after three weeks of laying down their tools, they bowed to government pressure and called off the strike after their second meeting with President Museveni.
The President told the striking teachers that the government was aware of their salary issues and committed to enhance it in a phased manner.
Mr Modern Karema Musiimenta, the country director of StiR Education, a non-governmental organisation that “supports education systems to reinite intrinsic motivation so that every child, teacher and official is motivated to learn and improve”, said to have a good teaching and learning environment, the teachers need to have good capacity and skills to improve their trade so as to achieve learning.
Mr Musiimenta said during the training, head teachers were empowered with requisite skills, knowledge, values and attitudes that they will use to change their classroom practice.
He told the head teachers that it’s not only money that motivates teachers, but other factors.
“Motivation and demotivation is not just a product of money, what motivates a staff member is the environment in which they are operating and the ability to get the results. In the case of teachers, we believe that we need to empower them with the other motivation, which is why we take them through training and informing them about the purpose of the teacher,” he said.
The head teacher of Busoga High School, Ms Oliver Nambi, said training retools them in the teaching practices of the classroom, especially in the new curriculum.
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