Cabinet meeting on April 30, 2020, to curb the Coronavirus pandemic, decided that schools would remain closed until September, prompting many private schools to suspend contracts with teachers.

It is a decision that has made lives of the teachers worse because since March they haven’t received a salary. As a result, some teachers were chased from the rented houses, and others looked for other opportunities to survive.

In June this year, Umwarimu Sacco launched a loan scheme called ‘Iramiro’, through which private schools will be given loans so that they can continue to pay teachers who are currently affected by the Coronavirus pandemic.

Teachers in private schools, however, say that the private schools’ managers have chosen not to take out the loan, and so in a way, the affected teachers will not benefit from the scheme.

The Prime Minister, Dr. Ngirente, when addressing members of Parliament on Strategies for Preventing and Combating the Covid-19, said that the issue of private institutions ignoring the loan opportunity to enable them pay teachers will be responded to with an actionable intervention.

“We have encouraged private institutions to take out loans from the teachers’ Sacco but we have already noted that some schools are reluctant to take the offer, so we shall take another intervention,” he said.

Prime Minister Dr. Ngirente said there is a plan to provide food to private school teachers who haven’t been paid for a while.

“Some have asked us to provide them with food regularly and we are doing it. There is a plan to help them because there are some who have not been paid for a long time. Those who fall in the category of people who have not been able to earn anything since Covid-19 started will be supported so that they don’t sleep without eating”.

On the issue of schools refusing to pay teachers’ salaries, the Minister of Education, Dr. Uwamariya Valentine, said that they could not force private schools to take a loan to pay teachers’ salaries since they will not help them to pay back the debts.

Prime Minister Dr. Edouard Ngirente said that the government plans to provide food to some teachers in private schools because they have not been paid for a while.