Education ministry to hire 22,000 teachers

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Education and Sports Ministry is set to hire 22,000 teachers in the 2019/2020 financial year, URN has learnt.

This follows the lifting of a ban on teacher recruitment by the Finance Ministry.

Last year, the Finance Ministry stopped attempts by Ministry Education and Sports to recruit a similar number of teachers, saying there was no money.

Now, Dr. Tony Mukasa Lusambu, the Commissioner Primary Education, says the Finance Ministry has lifted the ban, adding that intend to hire 22,000 teachers in different phases starting the 2019/2020 financial year.

Dr. Lusambu says the move comes at a time when many schools are operating with a limited number of teachers. There are over 13,000 government funded primary schools in the country. Dr. Lusambu says the recruitment of new teachers will reduce the burden  teachers are shouldering.

Schools with 1000 pupils will get an additional 11 teachers on top of what they already had. The ideal teacher-pupils ratio is one teacher to 53 pupils. But in most schools, this ratio is ignored as some teachers teach three times the number of pupils that they ought to teach.

The proposed recruitment of teachers comes at a time when teachers under Uganda National Teacher Union are threatening to strike over salary enhancement. The teachers want government to increase their salaries as promised in 2014.  They want a grade III teacher to earn at least Shillings 1.5 million.

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URN