The Minister of Education of Northern Bahr el Ghazal State Hon. Kon Deng Chan says that salaries will be paid in full to teachers in his state spite of the current conflict.
In an interview with Radio Tamazuj on Monday, the education minister described how he had fought to secure the salaries for the teachers, which have not yet been paid out for December or January.
Hon. Kon Deng Chan said that he discussed the salaries issue with the Ministry of Finance and acting Governor Adup Achier, asking them why the salaries for his ministry were delayed.
As a result of this meeting, he explained, the education ministry have been given an advance cheque and also promised to receive salaries before any other ministry in the state.
He disclosed the finance ministry initially suggested that employees of the state education ministry receive only 80% or 75% of their salaries due, but the minister rejected the proposal until they finally agreed to pay out the salaries 100% like other ministries in the state.
The minister revealed that the budget constraints had prevented his ministry from promoting old teachers or recruiting new ones. He said this was the problem they were facing in the ministry.
He also noted that some schools that were damaged by floodwaters during the rainy season last year were not yet renovated or re-built because of budget constraints. He said his ministry was requesting aid organizations to build these schools.
Pass rate drops
Primary eight examinations results in Northern Bahr al Ghazal were announced on Monday. The pass rate was more than 10% lower this year than last year.
According to the minister, the performance rate of the last academic year (2012-2013) was 87.6 % in comparison to a pass rate of 75.1% for this academic year (2013-2014).
However, he also noted that the number of exam takers was higher this year with 3,946 students participating compared to 3,596 last year. The number of girls participating was 794 compared to only 512 in the last academic year.
The minister also dismissed a rumor that a delay in releasing the examinations results was related to the salaries issue. He told Radio Tamazuj that instead the delay was due to some “mess up” of inclusion of unregistered names among the registered ones, which had to be taken out by the examinations’ control body.
File photo: A classroom in South Sudan, 2011 (Oxfam)