At least 46 educationists including Sector Education Officers, head-teachers, deputy head-teachers and teachers are believed to have lost their jobs on February 2nd when they were summoned by Nyagatare District’s executive committee led by the district’s Mayor George Mupenzi.
Faustin Harerimana, the General Secretary of Rwanda Teachers’ Syndicate told IGIHE on Friday that his office has sent a letter to the district’s mayor seeking talks with a target to see the teachers placed back in their jobs. He said the union considers suing the district if the talks falter, adding that other two districts have so far been defeated in courts for mistreating teachers.
“It is a big problem to see 46 teachers in one district resigning on the same day, doing it from the same venue and with exactly the same wording in their resignation letters. It is unclear that all had their personal reasons for resignation as district’s officials are saying,” said Harerimana, adding that the voice of 46 victims should be heard or else the justice will be rendered by the court.
Some of the victims sent a letter to the district five days after their resignation asking for recovering their jobs, saying that they were forced to resign.
“To the mayor of Nyagatare District, we ask you to place us back in our education jobs and ignore the letter you drafted for us and forced us to sign on 02/02/2018 stating that we resign for our personal reasons yet we still love the job and we are able to do it,” reads part of the letter copied to and received by three government ministries and other institutions last Friday.
Some of the victims who preferred anonymity for fear of retribution told IGIHE that they were told to be at the district’s office at 6 am for a meeting but there was no meeting until 1 pm when district officials flanked by security forces grabbed the teachers’ mobile phones and started receiving one by one in the office telling each of the allegations they had to apologise for.
“We were threatened to be jailed, some of us signed right away, others refused and were detained in the transit centre. The showdown went up to midnight,” narrates the teacher.
Mayor Mupenzi told the press last Thursday that all the teachers resigned by their will after being told of their bad deeds.
“Nobody was forced to resign. We summoned them as the district’s executive committee and education officers. We told them their faults, they willingly decided to resign and we thank them for that. We did it to safeguard the quality of education,” he said.
Mupenzi said the teachers’ faults include misconduct at work, reporting at work when they were drunk, poor hygiene and bad school’s management among others.
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