Teachers and lecturers in public institutions across the country have not been paid salaries for almost a year

Primary and Secondary school teachers in Aweil Town of Northern Bar el Ghazal state have gone on strike due to delay in payment of their salaries.

According to the Press Secretary in the office of the governor, the teachers have not been paid for almost a year.

“We are waiting for the salary from Juba and up to now, there is no information,” said Deng Kiir.

He, however, appealed to them to exercise patience.

“Northern Bahr el Ghazal [is] not separate from the system of payment from the Ministry of Finance. When the salaries are released, automatically they are paid to the people that are due to receive it,” he stated.

In South Sudan, teaching is considered as one of the least paying professions.

Some teachers told Eye Radio that they are paid a salary of less than 5 dollars per month.

Others say they have abandoned the profession and joined non-governmental organizations.

Others have resorted to manual jobs such as riding boda-boda to make ends meet.

Despite the perpetual complaints about poor pay, the government has not adjusted teachers’ salaries in a long time.

In the 2019/2020 fiscal year budget, the education sector was allocated just 6% of the national budget.

In October this year, the Vice President for the Service Cluster, Hussein Abdelbagi promised to raise teachers’ salaries.

He said: “…education and health are the backbones of our cluster and we have to fight very hard as our priority to help the teachers, especially to prepare their salaries – the new hierarchy of salaries.”

But its been nearly 9 months and public school teachers say they have been without salary. The last payment in January 2020 was a month’s worth of arrears.

On Monday, the academic staff of the University of Bahr el Ghazal in Wau also started a one-week strike, demanding unpaid salaries.

The teaching staff downed their tools in protest of unpaid salaries of eight months.

They say the strike will continue for 7 days and then indefinitely if their salaries are not paid.

Civil servants in South Sudan often go for more than six months without pay.