A Nation's Broken Promise
In 1997, Uganda made a bold commitment to its children. It promised that no matter their background or financial status, every child would have access to education. This vision gave birth to the Universal Primary Education (UPE) and later the Universal Secondary Education (USE) initiatives. At the time, it was seen as a beacon of hope for the future.
The excitement was palpable. Classrooms were filled with eager students, families celebrated the opportunity for their children, and for the first time, poverty seemed like something that could be overcome. However, today, that promise feels like a cruel joke. The optimism has faded, replaced by a silence that is difficult to ignore. It is a silence filled with hungry children, exhausted teachers, and crumbling school buildings. What once felt like a step toward a brighter future has instead become a slow descent into despair.
The Crisis of Funding
One of the most pressing issues is funding. The Ugandan government currently allocates just sh20,000 per child per year in primary schools—approximately $5. That’s the entire budget to educate a child for an entire year. Think about what $5 can buy these days. It barely covers school supplies, textbooks, lunch, or even soap for the school toilet, if there is one. Compare this to the National Planning Authority's recommendation of over sh63,000 per learner in urban areas and sh59,000 in rural schools. The reality is that we are short-changing our children at every turn, giving them peanuts and calling it policy. It’s not just inadequate; it’s insulting.
To illustrate how extreme the imbalance has become, consider this: a friend who is a minister in the current government enjoys a bottle of premium French wine each evening, costing around $135. That single bottle costs the same as the entire annual capitation for 26 school children. Twenty-six futures, all lost in one drink. And he’s not alone; these are the same people who make decisions about our national education budget.
The Issue of Nutrition
The issue isn’t just about money; it’s also about food. Only three out of ten rural schools in Uganda provide even a single meal a day. In Dokolo District, I visited a government school just 12 kilometers from the town center. When the lunchtime bell rang, the children didn’t move. There was no food, no lunchboxes, just silence. Some rested their heads on desks, others tried to distract themselves with play. I spoke to a young girl, about 10 years old. When I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she didn’t say “doctor” or “teacher.” She looked down and said, “I just want to be a school cook.” That answer broke something in me.
We expect these children to learn algebra, read novels, and write compositions on empty stomachs? If only our policymakers could experience one month without breakfast or lunch, and only water until 6pm, they might finally understand the brutal truth: a hungry child can’t learn.
The Teacher Crisis
Hunger isn’t just physical; it eats into the brain, the spirit, and the future. While the learners starve, our teachers are in crisis too. Many of them graduated in the 1970s and 80s and have never had any training since. In rural areas, especially, most have never even touched a computer. That’s not just a tech gap; that’s an educational time warp.
A district in Northern Uganda recently administered a basic competency test to its own teachers, the same content they teach in class. Shockingly, 89% failed to score even 50%. And we wonder why the national exams are producing such grim results? It’s not just the students who’ve been abandoned; it’s the very people we entrust to guide them. The rot runs deep.
The State of School Infrastructure
Many schools in Dokolo still lack the most basic facilities, no libraries, no laboratories, not even functioning toilets. Some children still learn under trees. They sit on stones, write on their laps, and balance their futures against the wind. Teachers juggle massive class sizes, averaging 78 pupils per teacher, far above the recommended ratio. They juggle multiple classes, low pay, and no materials. What is being taught in such chaos? And more crucially, what is being learned?
The Dropout Rate
It’s no surprise, then, that the national dropout rate has ballooned. Nearly half of primary school learners drop out before completing. In Dokolo, the numbers are even higher. Teenagers with no literacy skills are ending up in boda stages, early marriages, or worse, on the streets, vulnerable to violence and crime. A generation that was promised education is now spiraling into survival mode.
Misuse of Funds
Yet, somehow, the government always finds money for the wrong things. Just the other day, the Ministry of Gender announced that it had spent sh12 billion on luxury V8 SUVs for cultural leaders, each worth about sh800 million. And they’re not done: they’re planning to release $180,000 per year per leader for operational costs. That’s more than sh10.5 billion annually. Now imagine what that kind of money could do for schools in Dokolo—ICT labs, stocked libraries, trained teachers, and feeding programs.
Instead, we’re fueling egos and calling it governance, while children drink water for lunch.
A Call for Change
You know what makes it all the more absurd? The Pope, yes, the head of the Vatican, drives a small Fiat. Our leaders, in contrast, cling to their air-conditioned convoys, convinced they’re kings while their children become statistics.
So, where do we go from here? Uganda doesn’t lack money; it lacks direction. It lacks values. It lacks heart. We don’t need more policies; we need the political will to implement the ones we already have. That begins with raising the capitation grant to a realistic figure. It means scaling up school feeding to 100% of rural schools. It requires serious, continuous professional development for our teachers. And above all, it demands that we reallocate the billions wasted on luxury into building the minds of our children.
Because here’s the hard truth: a child who learns on an empty stomach, from a teacher who doesn’t understand the material, is a child whose dreams are being quietly buried.
Until we put the classroom before the convoy, the blackboard before the bottle of wine, and the learner before the leader’s ego, Uganda will not rise. We must stop lying to ourselves. UPE and USE are not working, not because the idea was wrong, but because we’ve failed to honor it. May God help Uganda—but only after we find the courage to help ourselves.
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