Teachers spending nights on Kyambogo verandas in struggle to verify documents

As a result, many of them spend nights on verandas and open buildings at Kyambogo University to ensure their documents are verified before they proceed to register with the Ministry of Education and Sports.

Majority of the teachers pack themselves in a tent that can hardly contain the big numbers. As the heat worsens because of the afternoon sun, some of them cover their heads with khaki envelopes and bags. Others could be seen momentarily fanning themselves with parcels.

The registration is part of the Teacher Management and Information System (TMIS) exercise introduced by the Education Ministry last year, to streamline the registration of teachers in the country and harmonize their records for better planning. The exercise is planned to end in December. Commenting on the situation, some of the teachers who spoke out described the whole process as “torture”.

Sylus Kiiza, a teacher from Kiboota Primary School in Bunyangabu District says he brought his documents for verification during the first term holidays but is yet to receive them.

“What I have discovered here is that they don’t give you sufficient information, they just tell you come with your documents, they don’t tell you where you’re supposed to go,” he says.

Mariam Nabagaya, a teacher from Namulonge in Wakiso district, says they are given special computer-generated payment numbers, which expire in two days.

According to Nabagaya, one has to ensure that she pays the verification fees through the bank using the same number and submit the form before the two days elapse, otherwise short of this, one has to go through the dreadful process again. Each document is verified at Shs 3,000.

“We are suffering it’s a lot of inconvenience , these people also come late, some of our colleagues were here by 7 O’clock in the morning and these people arrived at 9 O’clock to start working on them which is unfortunate,” she says.

Christopher Mugisha from Ntungamo District said he has spent much money including paying for lodging and transport to and from Kyambogo since Friday last week. Mugisha has appealed to the Education Ministry to decentralize the verification service to save from spending unnecessarily.

“We request the programme managers to set some centres at district level so that it can save our work and as far as job security is concerned, we request the head teachers to give us ample time to register, the ministry should actually take charge in this, otherwise we are suffering here both physically and financially. We are spending money we don’t have,” he says.

Kyambogo University Vice-Chancellor, Professor Eli Katunguka acknowledges to have received reports that many teachers, especially from upcountry, are struggling through the process.

He, however, says Kyambogo University has no accommodation facilities for the teachers given that studies have resumed for the new academic year.

“It has been brought to my attention that there are some people coming from very far and cannot have their documents verified that very day, so some of them spend the night here because they do not have accommodation,” he says.
‘’This is a bit unfair, the whole exercise has been overwhelming and I think the ministry of education was ambitious to say that this should be done in a certain period of time, I think they should have given it more time,” he adds.

Mr Katunguka also attributes the slow process the old record system before technology advancement where the documents initially were stored manually and therefore tracing them takes a lot of time.

“It takes a long time to retrieve these documents and yet we are understaffed in the academic registration department, they have been working tirelessly to help the teachers in addition to doing their daily work. We need to discuss this with the ministry of education so as to see a way forward, it’s not enough for them to just say, ask Kyambogo to handle without knowing what we go through,” he stated.