Teachers Strike

Today Sarah and I had an appointment to go and video tape our favorite teacher-Apollo. He had attended the science teacher seminars, and had asked us to come and watch him. We were so impressed when we did, that we wanted to record him and play portions of his lesson in the next seminar. When we showed up to Bujuloto Primary School, everything seemed normal at first. We were ushered into the headmasters office to sign the visitor's book and spoke with her for a few minutes. But then she explained to us that the teachers were on strike.

Last week the President of Uganda, Museveni, announced that there were not enough funds to raise teachers salaries. The speech, I believe, was broadcast on the local radio station last night, and today, nearly all teachers have gone on strike-everywhere. Apollo was the only teacher at the school. Beyond him was the headmaster and 2 deputy head teachers, but they were the only ones there. "What are all the students doing?" I asked. Gertrude, the headmaster told me that the students were still working at their desks without a teacher. This is crazy, I thought. We left her office and waited for Apollo to be ready to teach his lesson. I walked past a P1 class that looked like it was getting rather unruly. I stepped inside to find the over 100 students copying numbers from the board. There were 2 older girls with sticks who were walking around and whacking them if they got too much off-task. Despite not having a real teacher, they still stood and greeted me in their usual choral response. I walked around for a couple of minutes praising the students on their writing and they calmed down considerably. Then Apollo taught the lesson he had so carefully prepared, pulling in students from other grade levels to fill the room because many pupils weren't there. After the lesson the headteacher excused all the students from the school.

On our way back home, we found a crowd of students outside the municipality's office demanding their teachers back. I don't know how long the strike will last, but this is crazy.

ps, I found out how much teacher salaries are. They are paid about 200,000 UGX. aka, $76/month. And I thought I was paid poorly.

Here's a link to read about it:
http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1208418/-/bl1svaz/-/


Sarah and I with Apollo's class

One of our favorite teachers, Jessica.