The government has released a program to provide over 300,000 private teachers with cash relief to help jumpstart their welfare.
In one of the COVID19 addresses last year, President Museveni had on June 18, directed Prime Minister Robina Nabbanja and Betty Amongi, the Minister of Gender, Labour, and Social Development to identify interventions on how to take care of the needs of persons who depend on daily income in urban centers especially Greater Kampala/cities and municipalities in the lockdown.
Having implemented the directives and covered over 497848 people, the Minister for gender labor and social development, Hon Betty Amongi Ongom on Thursday 6 at the Media center Kampala, noted that Give Directly (GD) an international NGO approached the ministry with additional funds aimed at supporting the vulnerable people.
GD focuses on poverty alleviation and humanitarian relief via livelihood cash transfer.
Honorable notes that since the economy had been opened already, the ministry together with other stakeholders including the Office of the Prime Minister and Ministry of Education and Sports took a decision to divert the funds and support private teachers in both primary and secondary schools.
“The decision to target teachers in private schools was based on a fact that schools have been closed since March 2020 when COVID19 forced a national wide lockdown,” Amongi said. Adding that while other sectors enjoyed full or partial reopening, the education sector remained closed.
Honorable notes that teachers eligible for the program included among others those that are not on the payroll, duly registered or licensed by the Ministry of Education and sports or with evidence of submission for registration, had been teaching in a licensed school before March 2020, didn’t benefit from the July – September 2021 GOU COVID19 cash support program and with a registered mobile money account.
Each teacher will receive Shs100,000 with taxes and withdrawal charges catered for by the program.
Currently, the ministry is closely working with the Kampala City Council Authority, Chief Administrative Officers, Town Clerks of cities and municipalities to ensure that Education Officers and Headteachers of private secondary and primary schools compile and upload data of eligible teachers on the online system. (https://cashrelief.mglsd.go.ug/)
This has been developed, tested, issued with guidelines and a circular, and trained all stakeholders on how to use the online system.
Teachers in Uganda have for the last two years decried the government over the deteriorating condition since they had not planned for the lockdown, not on the government payroll and most of them had no alternative business since teaching is a full-time job.
This has also forced many out of the profession to join other ventures which leaves the fate of the many children and schools uncertain as they may not be able to come back from the crisis.
