The district with five government-aided secondary schools and 1 tertiary institution has only 93 filled positions against the 367 approved staff ceiling, leaving 274 vacancies unfilled.
Otuke district is struggling with inadequate staff in secondary
and tertiary schools.
The district with five government-aided secondary schools and 1
tertiary institution has only 93 filled positions against the 367 approved
staff ceiling, leaving 274 vacancies unfilled.
Adwari Secondary School has 32 out of 151 required teachers whereas Okwang secondary
school which is supposed to have 89 staff has only 25. At Orum Secondary
School, there are only 9 staff instead of 49 while Otuke Secondary School has 10
out of 47 approved staff.
The inadequate staffing is attributed to failure to replace teachers who have
been to other schools or teachers who refuse to report to school when posted by
the Ministry.
Christine Adongo, the headteacher of Ogor Seed Secondary School
says that some teachers left because the school is located in a hard to reach
area without decent accommodation.
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Alfred Malinga, the Chief Administrative Officer attributed the
staffing gap in schools to the unfavourable conditions in the district.
“The major challenge for attraction and retention of teachers in
the district is hard to reach and hard to stay conditions which need to be
addressed urgently. The District should be brought on board to benefit from the
hardship allowance given as a top-up to the employees.”
However, unlike the neighbouring districts of Abim, Agago, Napak,
Kapelebyong and Amuria, Otuke has not been gazetted as a hard to reach area.
Susan Abeja, the District Woman MP says the district was erroneously
excluded from hard to reach areas so that teachers and health workers are excluded
from the hardship allowance.
She
believes that with the hardship allowance, teachers posted to schools in the
district will be motivated to stay and teach in these schools.
