Science teachers are trying to lower their age in a bid to avoid mandatory retirement and benefit from the recent salary enhancement accorded to them by the government.
The teachers whose salaries were recently enhanced from about 1 million Shillings to 4 million Shillings are desperately working around the clock to lower their ages to avoid mandatory retirement.
According to Samuel Odongo, the Registration Officer at National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) Soroti-Karamoja region has revealed that every week about 15 teachers approach NIRA seeking assistance to lower their ages in order to avoid retirement.
Odongo said that the teachers wanting to lower their ages fall between 50- 55 years and a majority of them are men.
Odongo told our reporter that his office receives between two – five science teachers daily seeking assistance to lower their ages so as to avoid mandatory retirement quickly.
James Oede, the Soroti district education officer has called upon the affected teachers to come to terms with the situation and accept to retire honourably in accordance with public service retirement standard orders. Oede noted that kind of behaviour depicts the character of persons who did not prepare for their retirement time early.