Is education free in Uganda?
Universal Primary Education in Uganda
Both from a human centred and economic perspective, education is an essential aspect of life. It can inspire our children, create better opportunities for earning income, provide foundational knowledge of better health and lead to various other improvements in a person’s quality of life and opportunities.
What is Universal Primary Education?
Universal Primary Education (UPE)- is one of Uganda’s main policy tools for achieving poverty reduction and human development.
Introduced in 1997 by President Museveni, the policy seeks to enable all Ugandan children of school age not only to enter and remain in school but also to successfully complete the primary school level of education by abolishing all tuition fees.
The main objectives of Universal Primary Education in Uganda are:
To offer quality education as the basis for human resource development.
To provide the facilities and resources to enable every child to enter and remain in school until the primary cycle of education is complete.
To make education equitable in order to eliminate disparities.
To ensure its affordability and accessibility by the majority of Ugandans.
To equip every individual with basic skills and knowledge in order to eradicate poverty.
How did Universal Primary Education in Uganda come about?
The idea of Universal Primary Education was originally a relatively minor campaign point set out in President Museveni’s manifesto in 1996, when the first Ugandan Presidential elections took place. However, it struck a chord with the electorate -something the campaign team cottoned onto – making the abolition of tuition fees a key policy of a huge electoral victory.
President Museveni acted quickly, implementing the programme a month after winning the election, and Uganda has not looked back since. The sustained focus on the programme is notable from my own personal experience; it's something you see every time you open a newspaper in Uganda.
For the following election in 2001, Museveni again ran with Universal Primary Education as a key part of his campaign. Evidently it is something the people really care about, and something that has really helped the President’s legitimacy in power; his approval ratings have typically remained high within Uganda and education is seen as something to be proud of by its citizens.
What positive impacts has Universal Primary Education in Uganda had?
Since the programme started, school enrolment rates more than doubled and enrolment has risen by approximately 5 million children, over the first 19 years of the policy. This shows that the payment of school fees was a big impediment to accessing education, especially for poor families.
The country’s overall literacy rates during that time have risen by around 16% (from 68% literate in 2002 to 79% literate in 2021). Whilst not necessarily due to a better quality education, it seems that greater access to education has had a positive impact.
Economically speaking, there is a 13% increase in earnings per every additional year of education including in the informal sector. This means that by removing a major barrier to attending school (tuition fees), a big step will be taken towards reducing income poverty and promoting development.(Source)
Research also showed that female education delays the timing of both teenage marriage and first pregnancy, which reduces infant mortality rates and the significant associated health risk for mothers. Attending an additional year of schooling reduces the probability of marriage and pregnancy before the age of 18 by 7.2%. (Source) Controlling for income levels, early research demonstrated increased enrolment rates were especially notable for the poor, and controlling for gender, especially notable for the enrollment of girls.
Evidence also shows that among those who gave birth by the age of 18, mothers who had attended school invested more in the health of their children by attending medical facilities and having their children vaccinated. This leads to a logical assumption that for more mothers enrolled in school, there would be a positive outcome on child health.
A free education for all – what’s not to love?
Even though Uganda has experienced a significant increase in school enrolment rates, it also displays one of the highest school dropout rates worldwide at Primary level.
In fact, up to 47% of children enrolled in primary education do not complete school. Only 25% of students who do complete primary education proceed to secondary education. Importantly, attendance and completion rates have not risen since significantly since the introduction of Universal Primary Education
With a huge influx of enrolment, the capacity of the education system was overwhelmed: there was a shortage of teachers, school infrastructure (e.g. classrooms) and educational materials (e.g. textbooks), leading to severely overpopulated and under-resourced schools.
This means that despite free tuition, additional costs such as uniform, food and transport are costs that many families are not willing to pay, given the low educational outcomes from attending school. Universal Primary Education therefore may not be having the intended effect.
Conclusion
Over the past 50 years, and related to an expansion in access to free schooling policies such as Uganda’s ‘UPE’ programme, literacy rates across the world have risen dramatically. In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, a woman born in 1955 had approximately a one in three chance of being literate. Comparatively, a woman born in 1995 had about a 62% chance (Source).
Specifically in Uganda, literacy rates have increased from 68% in 2002 (five years after the introduction of UPE, selected to allow time for the impact to prevail) to 79% in 2021, an increase of around 16%.
Moreover, where access to education has increased, so too have economic returns to that schooling; World Bank research found an average return of 12% of schooling at the primary level. (Source)
The introduction of UPE, therefore, can be argued to be a success, and with solid justification.
However, it has become clear that simply removing tuition fees, whilst helpful, has not fully resolved the challenges Uganda faces with delivering a quality primary education, particularly in rural areas. It is therefore vital that efforts are made to increase access to suitable learning environments for primary education, help minimise the impact of cost related barriers, as well as improving teaching standards leading to a better education whilst at school.
The Uganda School Project is on a mission to address these barriers and make primary education more accessible and higher quality for children in rural Uganda. Find out how here