A PROOF OF POOR DESIGN AND REWARD OF MEDIOCRITY
The performance of teachers is critical for the quality of any education system. On the contrary, teachers’ performance in
Uganda is characterized by: absenteeism, part-time teaching, inadequate lesson preparation, lack of instructional materials and
rote-teaching while their status and working conditions are also getting worse. BY MICHAEL TUMWESGIGYE
The country has developed an education gap because it’s not producing enough competent scientists and majority of learners shy away from offering science courses. However, the question remains why? Therefore, is increasing science teacher’s salaries the ultimate answer? CEO’s of big companies are keeping it concealed but they are outsourcing more competent scientists from other countries not to save on salaries but
to get better-skilled and more productive people than their Ugandan workers.
For close to two decades, Uganda has been implementing interventions to strengthen science education. It started with the termination of arts scholarships in public universities in 2005; allocating more funds to science research in public universities; reduction of non-science
courses in some public universities and the most recent, the executive order by the Ugandan president that led to increment of salaries for science teachers for FY 2022/2023. Other government interventions to promote science research and innovations include; the
establishment of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations in 2016 and presidential Initiative on Science and Technology. Indeed, science plays a very pivotal function in any country’s development and we are aware of its role in the period of renaissance and
enlightenment, industrial revolution and the current digital era. Therefore, the President’s need for science as a fundamental part of Uganda’s development is well aligned to the development process and needs of the country. However, beyond teacher’s pay, a lot more is desired if we are to realise our science dream in education.
Ever since colonial time, the teacher salary payment model used in Uganda has been the single-salary schedule where salary increment was according to experience and education level. This assumed that: 1) Teaching assignments were equal in difficulty. 2) More education and experience made a better teacher and 3) Salary variations were unnecessary and undesirable.
Under an executive directive by the president of Uganda, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) teachers have been singled out to pilot the pay rise to an average monthly earning of over 4 million in FY 2022/2023, while Arts and Primary school teachers will wait for later budgets. If it’s true that Arts teachers will also get a pay rise, then government should be applauded. This is because, all teachers deserve a good and decent pay, for, whether arts or science teachers, they do the same work of facilitating learning.
There is a general public feeling that the current teacher remuneration is very low, poorly designed and rewards mediocrity. Therefore, increasing salaries for teachers is a good and timely practice but it should be well planned with fairness not to exclude a
section of teachers.
Government should continue refining its teachers’ salary structure to consider key parameters that the current teacher pay structure ignores, for example; exemplary performance by teachers; results; achieving an intended outcome; assuming additional duties and special knowledge and skills possessed by teachers. This should include the academic gains made by their students. If the current salary differentiation is based
on extra skills and knowledge possessed by science teachers, then it’s commendable. Besides, what about Arts teachers with extra skills and knowledge? The recent science teacher salary enhancement leaves a lot to be desired and may not necessarily address the current challenge for science education in Uganda.
Therefore, our education system requires a strong and decentralized teacher evaluation system that can determine high performing teachers and remunerate them better than their counterparts. In fact, there remains a paradox that as we are dreaming of training more scientists, many university graduates of science remain unemployed in Uganda. If the new differentiated teacher pay system is to yield good fruits, government must actively and continuously engage and consult teachers. Their views and opinions about positive and negative consequences of pay structure are a critical element to inform policy makers who design new pay structure. The reason why Arts teachers declared a strike, was and is an indication that the salary reform exercise was a top- down issue without proper involvement of teachers in planning. Based on existing literature, averagely, 45 percent of Ordinary and Advanced level candidates fail sciences, compared to about 15 percent for arts every academic year. Only 10 percent of A-Level learners are science-oriented as set against 90 percent for arts. Arguments have been propounded that sciences are difficult and involve tedious lesson preparations, implementation, follow-up and handling of the poor learners’ attitudes, all of which require more time and energy compared to Arts subjects; this may justify the move for increment of salary for science teachers.
However, it’s doubtable whether this will translate into increased enrollment and performance in science subjects by learners. Perhaps, well designed national projects intended to promote science education would address the challenge more efficiently and effectively than
the controversial science teacher salary enhancement initiative.
The problem of science education in Uganda is far beyond the teacher’s salary structure. To address the imbalance between science and non-science fields, government must do a lot more than teachers’ pay; train more science teachers and provide continuous professional development to them; build and equip science labs; fund research in pedagogy and harmonize salaries for all public employees without discrimination
but based on performance metrics.
