As secondary schools were opening up for the second term in early May this year, science teachers around Uganda went on strike deciding not to teach until when the government intervened and increased their salaries just like other scientists which had been the initial plan of the government. This put a lot of pressure on the government because it meant that students wouldn’t be studying and school operations would be disrupted.

To address their problem, His Excellency President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni agreed to increase their salaries by 300% in the national budget 2022/23 and this will be effective starting July 2022. Having been promised the increment, the secondary science teachers who are graduates would be getting Ugx 4m per month but the government said that it would only afford to pay them Ugx 2.2m per month. The diploma science teachers would be getting Ugx 3m but the government said it could only afford to pay them Ugx 1.4m per month.

From the national budget 2022/23, Ugx 95 billion was allocated to the salary increment of science teachers excluding arts teachers. The salary increment angered arts teachers who blamed the government for being unfair and discriminatory. On June 14, barely a week after reading the national budget, The Uganda National Teachers’ Union (Unatu) called the budgetary decision a discriminatory policy that saw more than 100,000 secondary arts teachers going against the government’s decision.

The national chairperson of Unatu, Zadock Tumuhimbise, and the secretary-general Filbert Baguma had a meeting with the president on June 18 at State House but the two parties failed to reach a decision. The president insisted that he was going to first concentrate on the science teachers and the arts teachers would be sorted later on in the next financial year.

President Museveni urged the arts teachers to stop striking and go back to work which angered them the more. The President further instructed the Ministers of Education, Public service, and Finance to look into Unatu’s issue and find a way to handle the arts teachers’ salary push. In 2018, Unatu signed a collective bargaining agreement with the government which stated that all the salaries of teachers would be increased but when the government came up with an innovation strategy that would enhance the salaries of all scientists, science teachers also wanted to be included in that plan which left out the arts teachers.

Filbert Baguma said that the government has all the power to increase the salary of arts teachers and all it has to do is come up with a supplementary budget that caters for arts teachers as well because it would be unfair for an arts teacher teaching in the same secondary school with a science teacher who will be getting more salary than him at the end of the month.

Baguma argued that arts teachers have the same workload and operate in the same working environment as science teachers so it would be unfair for the government to discriminate against them. The country also needs arts people who can become politicians, economists and lawyers to mention but a few and they can also lead to the transformation of the country. Will the government hear the arts teachers’ plea and increase their salaries? That’s a topic that needs to be handled by the people at the top.