Respect teachers’ rights and welfare, university don urges

October 8, 2015 (BOR) – A don at John Garang Memorial University of Science and Technology in South Sudan’s Jonglei state has urged the nation to critically observe the rights of teachers and their welfare for better services in the world’s youngest nation.

Robert, M.K Deng, the deputy vice chancellor for administrations and finance remarked at a rally to commemorate International Teachers Day in Bor town.

Teachers, at all levels in the nation, often complain of low pay, poor working conditions, and lack of adequate teaching resources, which amounted to strikes in the past.

Deng said support should be mobilised for the teachers, adding that training them to raise their standards was a key for them to offer quality education to their students.

“We want to mobilize support so that the teachers’ welfare and rights are observed”, said the university don.

As a result of high demand for trained and qualified teachers rose in the Jonglei and other states in South Sudan, John Garang Memorial University responded by opening a college of education to address these challenges.

“We are happy, the state has also tried very best, hey have sent us teachers, which are coming to upgrade their standards, we have teachers with Arabic backgrounds, we are now teaching them English, we have teachers who were not trained, we are now training them”, said Deng.

The dean of college of education, David Malual Wuor, equally stressed the need to respect teachers, saying it encourages young ones to join education system as teachers.

“We have to honor the teachers and also encourage the young ones to come to the teaching service,” said Malual.

Currently, he added, 203 students from are being trained at the university, including 30 students undertaking Bachelor programs in education and 173 at certificates level for both secondary and primary education.

The state minister of information, Jody Jonglei, said the 50% increase in the housing allowances for the teachers allocated by government last year would increase to 100%.

“This year also in this budget, we have increased it to 100 percent simply because we need teachers will teach well”, he said.

(ST)