In his article in Daily Monitor of February 1, Moses Byaruhanga proposed that if they were to be realistic in view of the resource envelope, they could buy teachers bicycles. I think, he meant the government. What! Why such a thinking? After the UPE progress, lunch should be considered a priority issue in the provision of education service.

Byaruhanga's thinking compels him to truthfully tell us which school his biological children go to, the schools where his friend's children go and above all, his reminiscence should address whether his past household matches the present as he wishes for every Ugandan, if lunch is to be ignored in any school setting.

Last year, the Minister of Finance alluded to almost a similar thinking that there were no resources to increase teachers' salaries. Could this mean that her ministry will never think about funding a lunch programme in public schools as those in private sector continue to improve their menu? In disagreement with Byaruhanga, I advise that if he is interested to finding out what teachers really want, a bicycle is not one of the immediate ones on the list. Teachers, whether in public or private sector are still the working poor who need economic safety mechanisms. They lack social security protection and their future and that of their household is unpredictable.

I know this may sound strange to those who are well off, but surely a research should be done to establish the widening gap between head teachers and class teachers in terms of economic status. I believe, after the findings are got and disseminated, a lasting solution - far from bicycles and neglecting lunch - can be found and implemented. We urgently need a safety mechanism, not bicycles as a strategy to address teachers' chronic poverty.

We know that the government has greatly catapulted education programmes from where they were a decade ago but teachers' welfare is still wanting. As teachers, we cannot desire to receive bicycles as a poverty alleviation incentive. What we need is to receive the net and catch the fish ourselves other than getting a fish which will serve us for only a meal. I guess Byaruhanga could have tried to teach in the past. I want to assure him that he/she who can withstand the heat, the kitchen must be the station.

Even to a lay man's understanding, it is very challenging to teach children who are hungry. Suggesting that there is nothing new in respect to lunch before and after the introduction of UPE, you shouldn't forget the fact that in the past, there was plenty of food toeat than there is today.

The truth is that from 1974 up to the early '80s, there were granaries at our homes. Even communities had silos where food was stored and communally shared among those who didn't have. We didn't have the Sudan factor that have contributed to food shortage in our country - in the absence of an enabling law to cub smuggling of foodstuff to Sudan - leaving our students hungry. We used to get various food stuffs from our neighbours in case our granary at home was empty.

Secondly, in the past, people used to get meals that could leave them satisfied. It was hardly possible in the past that a teacher could chew only sugarcane for their lunch as it is the case today, or teach hungry pupils/students with empty stomach . True, a hungry man is an angry man, but what about where both the pupil and the teacher are hungry? Shall we end up with a hungry school/ system/ or programme that will produce results that make us hungry? Byaruhanga, I abhor the bicycle proposal.

Mr Kaboyo is the executive director of Coalition of Uganda Private School Teachers Association