Hertta-Maria Amutenja
The principal of Shikudule Combined School, Taarah Shalyefu has refuted allegations of corruption, nepotism, and misconduct levelled against him.
According to a letter from an anonymous source, the principal changed a junior primary teacher post to make room for Job Hafeni’s fiancée, a geography teacher, and school board secretary.
“Investigate and uncover what transpired at this school over the appointment and transfer of the girlfriend/fiance of the school board secretary, Mr Job ‘Logik’ Hafeni, who is also a geography teacher and school management member but not a head of department at that school,” the letter reads
The letter further alleges that, following Hafeni’s fiancée’s appointment, another teacher was demoted to junior primary without consultation.
Eventually, Hafeni’s girlfriend secured a position at the school during the second semester as a grade 4 teacher. Surprisingly, Shalyefu one day told one of the grade 4 teachers to pack her things and take over the grade 1 class, which did not have a teacher, because he, as a principal, would not allow a UNAM graduate (Hafeni’s fiance) teaching grade 1 while there is an IOL graduate teaching at senior primary; therefore, he is demoting her to grade 1 junior primary,” read the letter.
According to Shalyefu, the claims stem from dissatisfaction with staff restructuring.
“I have seen the letter. There is somebody who was fired last year after he impregnated a learner who I assume has a relative teaching at the school who I think is creating these rumours,” he said.
Shalyefu explained that the teacher who was demoted to junior primary had previously been teaching grades 4 and 5, but due to poor learner performance, the decision was made to change her assignment.
“The teacher who was teaching grades 4 to 7 had to be demoted to teach junior primary because the learners were not performing when she was teaching them,” said Shalyefu.
He added that the teacher in question was not pleased with the reassignment and had allegedly threatened to ruin his reputation.
“This teacher told me to my face that he will not teach at a junior primary level and that I am favouring the newly recruited teacher. This teacher also said to me that they would make sure they ruined my reputation. I told them to report the issue to the directorate so they could come and investigate the whole scenario. The only issue was that they were moved from senior primary to junior primary. And to be honest, the capacity of that teacher cannot be compared to that of the newly recruited,” he said.
