Joyce Namugambe
Following the increasing rate of Teacher’s absenteeism in schools around the country, the ministry of education and sports expressed concern over this habit which has caused great loss of funds from the ministry.
This comes at a time when the inspectorate of government revealed a report showing that Uganda’s education sector has lost approximately 1.5 trillion shillings from teacher’s absenteeism between January and June 2022, noting that absenteeism is the primary cause of financial losses in the educational sector, leading to poor instructional time.
The report also indicates that there is a loss of public education funds due to corruption totaling to 244.6 billion shillings during the research period. Bribery was also indicated as another issue with a total of 39.08 billion in losses.
To get to the total financial figure of the teacher’s absenteeism losses, the inspectorate of government calculated the cost of lost teaching hours for students. On average, seven hours of classroom time are lost each day due to absenteeism, equating to 478 hours annually for one student. With 9,600,000 students in secondary and primary schools and an average cost of teaching per student at Shs3, 269, the total cost of absenteeism is estimated at Shs1.47 trillion.
The permanent secretary in the ministry of education Katy Lamaro noted that as a way of fighting against the habit of teacher absenteeism in schools, government introduced a system of teacher effectiveness and learner achievement automated system, where teachers are required to log in using their thumbprints at their duty stations and later upgrading to facial recognition technology, although the system has some challenges such as poor internet network in rural schools. However, she encouraged the education sector to come together and fight against teacher’s absenteeism so that it can be put to an end for the good of the education system.
The Secretary General of the Uganda National teachers union Filbert Baguma emphasized that, to address the problem of teachers absenteeism, the sector should embark on finding out the causes of the habit and find means of solving them, noting that this can be done through improving on teachers’ welfare among other solutions.
In the same way, the dean of public administration at Uganda management institute Gerald Karyeija suggested that strengthening leadership and supervisory skills will help in monitoring teachers in schools, together with setting up tactic methods such as rewarding best performing teachers which will help to motivate them, thereby reducing the rate of absenteeism on schools.
