The Public Service ministry is projecting that another 33,754 people, again mostly teachers, are expected to leave the public service over the next five years.
The number of Ugandans leaving public service before clocking the mandatory retirement age has been on the increase over the last few years, triggering fears about a potential perfect storm.
Besides being faced with the prospect of future manpower shortages, the government will also need to dig deep in its purse to pay pensions and gratuities much earlier than expected.
This after the Public Service ministry’s latest State of Human Resource report indicated that 819 people sought early retirement in the Financial Year (FY)2022/2023, up from 443 in FY2020/2021.
The report shows that females who retired shot up from 213 in FY2020/2021 to 382 in FY2022/2023. Male retirees also soared from 230 to 443 in the said period.
Teachers constituted the biggest number of those who chose to quit per the report, with the teaching profession accounting for 690 out of the 919 people who quit the public service in FY2022/2023.
Overall, the number of teachers who took early retirement increased from 382 in the FY2020/2021 to 690 in the FY2022/2023. Primary school teachers constituted the biggest number of retirees.
“Teachers, particularly primary teachers, accounted for the majority of early retirements, suggesting potential challenges in workforce sustainability in the education sector,” the report reads.
While the Public Service ministry did not respond to our enquiry about what informed the spike in early retirements, the report alludes to poor pay and working conditions.
“The increase in early retirements, especially among teachers, suggests that the government needs to plan for potential workforce shortages. The government needs to investigate the reasons behind this trend and address any underlying issues such as workload, salary concerns, or working conditions, to retain more teachers until the standard retirement age,” the report reads, in part.
Frustration
Joseph Ssewungu, the shadow Education minister, blames the development on a skewed payment system that emphasises better remuneration for teachers of science subjects at the expense of teachers of arts subjects.
“The teachers are frustrated. They cannot fight for their rights. Government was trying to incriminate them when they tried to demonstrate under their umbrella organisation, but it should be noted that teachers lost interest the minute we decided to pay science teachers much more than what we pay others yet they have the same workload and go to the same markets,” Mr Ssewungu told Monitor.
On July 1, 2022, the Public Service ministry released a Circular Standing Instruction which announced the increment of salaries of health professionals and health tutors; scientists in the mainstream public service; and science teachers in post-primary schools.
Under the arrangement, the two different categories of graduate scientists saw their salaries increased from Shs2.2m to Shs4m and another from between Shs1,496,690 and Shs1,720,000 to Shs4,250,000. Others are the different categories of diploma holder science teachers whose salaries were increased from between Shs1,102,361 and Shs1,183,720 to Shs4 million and another from Shs933,966 to Shs2.2m.
The different diploma and degree holder teachers of arts subjects remained earning between Shs745,000 and Shs784,214 and between Shs960,288 and Shs1,078,162 respectively.
It was, however, not possible to establish whether those who have sought early retirement are teachers of science or arts subjects.
More to gain
Mr Ssewungu, however, said teachers of science subjects stand more to gain out of taking early retirement as they would continue earning much more than their colleague teachers of arts subjects.
The report further reveals an increase by 68 in the number of people from other sectors of the public service who sought early retirement. It indicates that the number rose from 61 people in the FY 2020/2021 to 129 people in the FY2022/2023.
In terms of gender distribution, there were many more men than women who quit. The statistics show that the number of men who quit increased by 207, rising from 230 in the FY2020/2021 to 437 in the FY 2022/2023. The number of females who opted to take early retirement increased by 169, rising from 213 in the FY 2020/2021 to 382 in the FY2022/2023.
Implications
According to the report, the number of pensioners had increased from 67,255 as of December 2022, to 78,416 as of December 2023. This summarily increased the monthly gross pay to pensioners to Shs59.221b.
The Public Service ministry is, however, projecting that another 33,754 people, again mostly teachers, are expected to leave the public service over the next five years. Other categories that are expected to experience voluntary departures include the Uganda Police Force, Local Government, and the health sector. This, the report warns, is likely to increase the burden on the government’s coffers as they will come with increased demand for funds in the form of payouts as gratuity and pensions.
By press time, the Public Service ministry had not reverted to us with projections on what the government might require paying out pensions and gratuity in the event that the projected retirements materialise.
