Primary teachers are set to receive an 88 percent salary increment, while secondary school teachers will receive a 40 percent increment, effective August 2022.

The development is part of the incentives aimed at improving teachers’ livelihoods.

Prime Minister Edouard Ngirente announced the development on Monday, August 1 while addressing both chambers of parliament on the state of the education sector.

Under the revised salaries, Ngirente said that primary teachers will get up to 88 percent pay rise, while their secondary school counterparts will receive a 40 percent rise.

The move comes at a time when a freshly recruited A2 certificate teacher (mostly in primary) gets a net starting salary of Rwf50, 849 which is set to increase to Rwf95,596.

While a teacher’s salary recruited and paid on the basis of A1 diploma, will increase by 40 percent of net starting salary of 54,916, increasing the salary to Rwf76882.

Also to increase by 40 percent is the salary for a teacher recruited and paid on the basis of A0 degree of net starting salary of Rwf70,195 which is set to increase to Rwf98273.

"We have also not forgotten the salaries for Head teachers, Deputy Head Teachers, and support staff working in public and government-aided schools, which has also been revised upwards,” Ngirente said.

According to the Premier, despite the government increasing teachers’ salaries by 10 percent since March 2019, over 1000 teachers leave their profession monthly in search of better welfare.

This, he pointed out, costs the government at least Rwf300 million to be able to fill the gap every three months, amounting to Rwf1.2 billion per year.

"The damage is heavy, if you lose over 12,000 teachers per year, with delay in recruitment processes, there is going to be a gap in teaching these lessons to the students.”

The silver lining, Ngirente added, is that the government has already set up a digital mode of teacher recruitment to cut down the delays.

The pay rise is part of a package that will incorporate incentives to improve the welfare of teachers, promoting the quality of education in public and government-aided schools for general education and TVET.

"There has also been an allocation of Rwf5 billion to Umwarimu Sacco in order to strengthen liquidity conditions and access to finance by teachers,” he added.

The Premier also shared on encouraging more people to join the teaching profession as a way to uplift the quality of education.