MONROVIA, Montserrado – At least 100 Catholic School students have staged a mass demonstration at the Catholic Archdiocesan Secretariat office, demanding that their teachers receive their salaries.
The Bush Chicken previously reported on Catholic school teachers in Margibi who staged a go-slow in demand of salaries owed them by the Education Secretariat. Their students now appear to be joining the protest.
The students said the prolonged delay of salary arrears has caused them to be out of school for the past two days as some teachers have been deliberately absent from classes.
Isreal Saygbe, a tenth-grade student of Cathedral Catholic High School said, “We are here because our teachers are not coming to class.”
“They are saying that the administration has not paid them so they will not teach us,” he said. “We are here for our own good and I know that talking to the Education Secretariat will benefit us.”
Student Beauty F. Paye said, “I am here to disturb the administration of the Catholic school system because no teaching is going on in our schools.”
“For two days, we have been in our classes and we can’t get any teacher to come and teach us. We will just sit in classes and disturb the whole day,” she said. “The school cannot give us any information about our school system, so we will embarrass them.”
“They know about the pestilence within the country [which] has carried us backward, so they need to do something about that,” she said.
Students protest in front of the Catholic Archdiocesan Secretariat building
Jerry Nimely Clarke, a twelfth-grade student of St. Mary’s Catholic School, said, “We will demonstrate and when nothing is done then our parents will have to intervene.”
The head of the Catholic Teachers Association, Alphonso Quire, when contacted said, despite all interventions, the Catholic Education Secretariat has refused to pay their five months’ salary arrears. He said the go-slow will allow teachers to only sign-in, not to teach.
He said, “Since February 16, classes resumed and the CES does not want to do anything.”
The head of the Catholic Education Secretariat, Rev. Sumo Varfee Molubah, said that they are aware of the go-slow by the teachers.
Molubah said the Ebola virus is responsible for the delay in getting arrears ready for the teachers.
“The school system relies fully on fees collected in order to operate our schools,” Molubah said. “Regular salary payment will resume when funds start coming.”
“The go-slow action will surely hamper instructional activities and our students cannot be denied,” he said.
The schools affected are Cathedral Catholic High School, St. Mary’s Catholic School, and St. Edward Catholic School, among others.
Featured image courtesy of USAID
