Teacher training tutors protest removal from Science pay scheme

Science tutors and some ICT tutors from across the 23 core teacher training institutions have announced a nationwide strike accusing government deregistering them from science scale pay roll.

The aggrieved teachers also say they have been denied salary for the past eight months.

Geoffrey Mabonga, a graduate tutor from Busuubizi PTC Mityana, said he was forced to walk away after going without pay for about a year.

"Life has since become difficult, we cannot afford to meet our demands and yet there is a lot expected of us while teaching at PTC," he said.

"At some point, we even fail to raise transport for taking us to work," Mabonga said.

Robinah Acaloi, a graduate tutor of home economics at Busuubizi, is equally disillusioned.

"Some tutors have since borrowed money from banks with hopes of paying using monthly salary but now since we were de-registered, banks are on neck, " Acaloi said.

These salary woes have left them with no option but prompting them to announce an industrial action that they said starts on April 3.

"We appeal to the Ministry of Public Service to pay our salary as stipulated in the law," Daniel Natukunda, an agriculture tutor at St George's Ibanda Core PTC, said.

"If this matter is not resolved with in 10 days, we are left with no option but to strike come April 3."

The Uganda Professional Science Teachers' Union (UPSTU) said they were taking the matter seriously.

"The affected science tutors have been earning science salary scale since 2014 and were already on an approved Science Salary Scale (enhanced in 2022) as indicated in the Circular Standing Instruction but they were removed from this science pay in September 2023," Aron Mugaiga, the UPSTU general secretary, said.

UPSTU chairman Vincent Elong said the removal of science tutors from the approved pay scale without formal communication was rushed and unfair.

Salary concerns are not unique for only silence tutor but a cross-section of public servants are equally sad in silence despite government's promise to ensure regular salary enhancement across board which it commits to effect in phased manner.