Uganda joins the rest of the world to celebrate World teacher's day on Friday

By Daudi Zirimala

The Uganda National Teachers Union (UNATU) has urged government to streamline payroll management to stop deletions and stop bureaucratic tendencies in the processing of pensions and gratuity for teachers.

Speaking ahead of the teacher’s day tomorrow 5th October, the General Secretary of UNATU Filbert Baguma Bates said  they are celebrating this year’s teacher’s day when over 2000 teachers have not yet received their salaries since July 2018 due to negligence of some responsible officers running the payroll system.

He says despite having a collective bargaining agreement on salary enhancement signed between public service unions and government, implementation of the same is still chaotic.

The world teacher’s day 2018  will be celebrated under the theme, ‘The right to education means the right to a qualified teacher’, and the national celebrations to take place in Fort portal with a call to government to adopt the national teacher’s policy to reform the teaching profession.

"Teachers who die are not provided with a coffin and any other support as it applies to other civil servants yet teachers are like any other civil servants and must be treated in the same way as per the provisions of the Uganda Public service standing orders 2010", says Baguma.

On 5th October of every year, the whole world marks world teacher’s day WTD and on this day people recognize the contribution of the teaching profession and the same time rake stock of what has been achieved and what else needs to be done to improve the quality of education.