Unatu tasks govt to bail 3,000 Grade V teachers for graduation

 The secretary general of Uganda National Teachers’ Union (Unatu), Mr Filbert B. Baguma, told this publication yesterday that since NTCs, Kyambogo University and the Education ministry are part of government, the trio must come up with an immediate solution.

“If the directors of the institutions mishandled funds, they should find out. If they didn’t, they should be bailed out so that innocent teachers can get justice. This should have been yesterday,” he said.  Institutions training Grade V Teachers are plunged into debts of billions of shillings and have failed to meet the costs of Kyambogo University to graduate their students in at least two successive cohorts.

Kyambogo University is mandated with awarding qualifications for academic programmes run by NTCs in the country.

Debt

The Kyambogo University Vice Chancellor, Prof Eli Katunguka, said NTCs owe the university more than Shs1.2b.

He added that since there is no written commitment from government to clear the debt on behalf of the colleges, the university was not ready to clear defaulting students.

Last month, Education minister Janet Museveni said her ministry was in talks with her Finance counterparts over the matter.

Some of the principals of the affected colleges that this publication talked to recently confessed that the students made payments for examination, convocation, and transcripts, but the money was diverted to what they termed as critical services such as purchasing food, stationery, and paying for utilities, and salaries for lecturers who are not on the government payroll.

Fees

Each trainee teacher student pays Shs470,000 to their training colleges over two years for examination, convocation, and academic transcripts.

Mr Aron Mugaiga, the general secretary of the Uganda Professional Science Union (UPSTU),  said the Ministry of Education wrote a commitment to take over the debt so that students can graduate.

“They have caused a lot of emotional torture to both students and parents. They are curtailing opportunities for these learners and yet parents and students go through a lot to raise fees with the hope that when students graduate, they can be able to get jobs and turn around the situation at home,” he said.

Mr Mugaiga said the Education ministry should not only stop taking over the burden of paying the debt, but should also put in place stringent measures that will prevent misappropriation of such funds.

Ms Jennifer Sibbo, the acting senior public relations officer of Kyambogo University, said the results of the affected students had been approved by the Senate and that they would soon graduate.

Ms Sibbo, however, said academic documents shall be released to institutions that will have cleared the arrears.

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