Sudanese exam correctors protest pay cuts

Dozens of secondary school exams correctors demonstrated in Khartoum on Sunday in protest against the deduction of their dues.

The Teachers Union deducted SDG 460 ($ 16*) from the payment the correctors of the secondary school exams were supposed to receive this year.

Duriya Babikir, a leading member of the Teachers Committee, told Radio Dabanga that the correctors staged a sit-in in front of El Zahra school that functioned as a correction centre in April and May.

“The Teachers Union subtracted SDG 300 for the provision of services and SDG 160 for three breakfasts during the first days of Ramadan,” she said.

“The [governmental] Teachers Union told the correctors to stop the vigil. If not the security forces would disperse them by force.”

Babikir pointed out that about one third of the correctors are staff members of the Ministry of Education rather than teachers.

Services

In end April, teachers who travelled to Khartoum for the correction job complained about the conditions they were working and living in.

One of them told this station that he and his colleagues were accommodated in a poorly equipped school building in the Sudanese capital.

“Apart from the large distance between the school and the correction centre, the school lacks even the most basic facilities such as beds, sheets and pillows,” he complained.

* Based on the indicative US Dollar rate quoted by the Central Bank of Sudan (CBoS)