President Museveni has cautioned teachers and other players in the education sector to stop using threats to pressure him into reopening schools.
Museveni made these remarks on Tuesday while speaking at the belated national teacher’s day celebrations at Kololo.
“We don’t need to be threatened. Why do you threaten me?” Museveni asked.
The president has maintained the closure of institutions, fully or partially since March last year. He told the teachers that safeguarding the lives of learners supersedes any other concerns raised by stakeholders.
This stern message came as a response to issues raised by the head of the National Teachers Union, regarding the financial struggles faced by teachers who have not been working as well as the spike in cases of teenage pregnancies among the female learners stuck at home.
“This (lockdown) time was for survival and I am proud that we shielded our people from dying,” Museveni said.
“In Brazil, they have reached 600,000 deaths who died from corona. Here we have only seen 3000 deaths in one year and seven months. You think that is not important?” he added.
When it came to responding to the issue of learners losing too much time, Museveni said that no amount of lost time is greater than lost lives.
“The problem is that some of you have not seen problems. I had to interrupt my life for 8 years in Tanzania fighting Idi Amin. Then 5 years in the bush, that’s a total of 5 years, we came back.
Is anybody better off than myself, the one who lost 13 years? The thing was to survive, even if I lose time if there is such a big danger it’s better than dying,” he said.
The president made this remark citing the example of people, including himself who fought in the bush war to stabilize the country first.