A conflict has emerged between education stakeholders in Torit County over the use of school fees collected from pupils every term, despite that fact that the government is implementing a free universal primary school education system.
A decision taken by the Torit County Education department to charge a small amount of money to pupils for running school activities has brought a bitter misunderstanding between the Education Director, Mr. El-Amin Karar Amanya, and six head teacher from Nyong Payam, Radio Emmanuel reported.The fees should be divided between the school and the county and payam education offices.
Mr. Amanya claims that head teachers have failed to honour the remittance of the school collections to the payam and the county education offices according to the required percentages, a statement that the head teachers refute as not true.
The Torit County Education Director has suspended six head teachers he accused of gross misconduct including not remitting money to PTA, the parents and Teachers Association, attempt to stage a demonstration and allowing teachers to give only two lessons per day.
The accused head teachers hit back that the claims were baseless, that the education director framed them to revenge against his own misdeeds that involved lack of inspections, and the removal ghost names from the staff list.
Torit East Primary School head teacher, Angelo Oduma, Trubilish Rogato of Torit Model Primary School and Wisly Ali of Torit One Primary School were suspended for 14 day to wait for a disciplinary decision.
Other head teachers on suspension are Anthony Agira of Dr. John Garang Memorial School, Odera Charles of Airport View and Anthony Irra Kenyi of AIC Primary School.
A meeting schedule for the suspended head teachers to appear before a disciplinary committee, yesterday, failed to take place as some of the key stakeholders in the state education sector did not appear at the venue.
The suspended head teachers demand that the Director General of Education, the Executive Director of Torit County and the Director of Public Service in Eastern Equatoria should be present at the disciplinary meeting.