Striking teachers have agreed to end strike and go back to teaching after three weeks of industrial action over salary enhancement across all teachers.
This follows a meeting of leaders of the Uganda National Teacher’s Union in their regional clusters with President Museveni and minister of Education Janet Museveni today at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds.
President Museveni, told teachers that government is aware of the issues and committed to handling them but said they have a strategy and no one should disrupt them.
He advised striking teachers to go back to school and teach saying government will handle the issue of salary enhancement in a phased manner as government has no money to increase their salaries at once.
‘’The Arts teachers insist that we should use the available resources to improve salaries across the board, whilst this is possible, it does not solve the salary issue. It is okumemerera (sprinkling), where everyone will get a little and then next year everyone strikes.’’ Museveni posted on his twitter handle
‘’We have a strategy and no one should disrupt us. We are aware of the issues and we are committed to handling them. Therefore, my advice to the teachers is that they should go back and teach.’’ Museveni added
Now speaking to media, the Chairman General National Organisation of Trade Unions, Usher Wilson Owere, says they have agreed that teachers go back to school and teach as they keep pushing for government to work on the issues.
The current impasse resulted from the government’s decision to increase the pay for science teachers nearly by 300 percent in disregard of their colleagues in arts and humanities.
The increment saw the government increase the pay for graduate and grade V science teachers to Shillings 4 million and Shillings 3 million up from Shillings 1.1 million and Shillings 796,000 respectively.
