Lira City Teachers Call Off Strike over Unpaid Salaries

Teachers on Government payroll in Lira City have called off their industrial action over unpaid salaries.

When schools commenced on 9th May 2022, the Lira teachers like others countrywide welcomed learners back to school but barely a week after, they laid down their tools and learners are not being taught because the teachers have not been paid.

The over 1,200 teachers from government-aided schools in Lira City have not received their salaries since March.

However, Edward Ayoo, the Lira City Teacher's Coordinator now says they are calling off strike because they have been assured of payment by end of this month.

He urged his fellow teachers to go back to teaching and called upon head teachers to offer necessary support to their teachers since many of them are traumatized because of the unpaid salaries.

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//Cue in: “The supplementary budget…//

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Anna Erung the Chairperson Uganda National Teacher's Union for Lira City called upon teachers to start teaching saying the city council has written to UNATU, requesting them to allow teachers go back to class because the payment is expected to be effected by June 2, 2022.

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Meanwhile Isaac Ocoo, the Head Teacher Lira Secondary school in Lira City West Division is not worried whether or not teachers on government teachers’ resumes teaching or not because he has enough teachers being paid by the school as well as student teachers on school practice to help the learners.

“We have different categories of teachers," he said. "We have teachers who are locally paid and we have teachers who are in for school practice so the ones who were not affected are doing the work normally and they were helping us in the day to day running of the school.”

Records show that Parliament of Uganda has approved a 3.9Bn supplementary budget for paying teachers from government aided learning institutions in Lira City where primary school is allocated Shs.2.6Bn, Shs.1.1Bn for secondary schools whereas Shs.49.8million shillings has been allocated for tertiary institution. However, the money is yet to be released to the City's account.