President Yoweri Museveni’s government plans to pay each science teacher Shs8m per month, meaning that teaching will soon be one of the best-paying professions as opposed to previous decades when teachers were paid peanuts.
In coming years, teaching could be as attractive as medicine, engineering and law, some of the coveted courses or academic programs at universities and other institutions of higher learning in Uganda because of the salaries paid to people in these professions.
Four years since government raised salaries of science teachers to Shs4m monthly, it now plans to double that, The Pearl Times has learnt.
This means that science teachers will be among the categories of best paid government employees or civil servants.
Government’s plan is to ensure that this promise is fulfilled in the next five years, meaning that by 2031, science teachers will be earning Shs8m per month as basic salary, each.
Even arts teachers (or teachers of humanities) will be earning better under the proposed salary structure. Senior education officers teaching arts or humanities will be earning Shs1.7 million.
Public service minister Wilson Muruli Mukasa says that government has “a pay plan for all categories of civil servants,” and that “there is a plan to make [teachers] one of the best-paid civil servants.”
With about 350,000 civil servants on the government payroll, up to 54 per cent have had their salaries enhanced. Over 230,000 others will have their salaries enhanced in a phased manner.
The increment of salaries will see the wage bill rise from Shs8.5tn to Shs10tn.
Even at public universities, salaries will rise. Vice chancellors will be earning Shs20m up from Shs12.2m; deputy vice chancellors will be earning Shs17.4m up from Shs10.5m. science professors will be earning Shs15.6m while their counterparts in humanities will be getting Shs14.8m every month.
In the next financial year (2026-2027), arts teachers in secondary schools are expected to receive a 25 per cent increment, according to an agreement between them and the president, as reported Here.
Government is also expected to raise the salaries of mortuary and cemetery attendants from Shs500,000 to Shs1m every month. It is also expected to raise the salaries of radiology technologists from Shs2.6m to Shs3m.
You can see other categories of government employees whose salaries will be significantly increased starting July 2026 Here and There.
Meanwhile, government has introduced a new Public Service Contributory Pension scheme, and the public ministry officials are traversing the country sensitizing public servants on the new scheme.
Public service officials led by minister Muruli Mukasa recently told chief administrative officers, town clerks, hospital directors, human resource personnel and other government employees meeting at Las Vegas Hotel in Mbarara that civil servants will now be required to contribute five per cent toward their pension, and the government will contribute 10 percent. This will be a change from the current pension scheme where government fully funds civil servants’ pension.
See the full salary structure for all government employee categories, and the list of most highly paid civil servants Here, There and Over There.
