Science teachers under the umbrella of Uganda Professional Science Teachers Union-UPTU are fuming with colleagues under Uganda National Teachers Union-UNATU over salary.
Teachers under UNATU remain on strike over discriminatory salary enhancements.
UNATU is advocating for secondary school headteachers to receive 10 million shillings, while primary school headteachers receive 4.5 million shillings .
UNATU is also pushing the government to pay 4.8 million shillings to graduate science teachers and 4.5 million shillings to those teaching arts and humanities. They are also advocating for a 1.35 million shillings minimum salary for primary school teachers.
Science teachers claim the Arts colleagues are trying to mess up already endorsed salary enhancements by the government by demanding to share the money equally among all.
This development follows a Saturday June 18, agreement between President Museveni and the UNATU leadership calling for a review of salaries for all teachers to avoid discriminations among teachers.
According to the UNATU Secretary General Filbert Baguma, President Museveni directed the Ministries of Education and Public Service to provide an increment for all teachers in a phased manner.
Baguma however announced that the body would continue with their strike until a review is taken with satisfactory results
“The president has instructed the Ministries of Finance, Public service and Education to make a review. Our resumption of teaching will depend on how long the government takes to review and whether the outcome addresses a fair salary enhancement “ he says
Baguma says they want the government to enhance the salaries of all teachers at the same time.
“We put it to the government that the enhancements now are a breach of a collective bargaining agreement we made in 2018, the government underrated the consequences.” he explained
However, science teachers claim UNATU has made up a false message to the public. Vincent Elong, the UPSTU chairperson, says the government already committed and passed money in the 2022/2023 budget and they will not settle for anything less than that.
He says UNATU leadership should have informed the government of their position prior to the budget reading instead of trying to sabotage their prior negotiation.
“They are saying the government is going to review salaries which are already enhanced, where has this union been?if they really cared for teachers, they are just panicking. As science teachers, we don’t expect a review of salaries that have already been enhanced and the budget has been read.” Elong stated
In the budget for the financial year 2022/2023, the government enhanced salaries for science teachers, for graduate science and grade V teachers ‘to 4 million shillings and 3 million shillings up from 1.1 million and 796,000 shillings respectively.
