The government has over the years made continuous efforts to improve the literacy levels of Ugandans. By ensuring that every citizen has had a learning. Introduction OF Universal primary education Universal Secondary Education (UPE and USE) programmes has in one way contributed to achievement of this goal as compared to the previous eras when education was to be paid for.
However, the question still is; “Is access to education sufficient without quality?”
According to UWEZO reports education, there has been a blameless progress in access to education but despite the domain in this progress, the quality of education is still an issue though it improved over the years. Comparing the performance of 2016 and 2017 results. UNEB reports show that there was an improvement in performance in 2017 results as compared to 2016. However, the report indicates that the pass rate for USE and UPE schools is still lower.
“Wealth effects also demonstrated in the differences between private and UPE schools. Private and urban primary schools tend to have advantages in socioeconomics, physical facilities and teacher workloads as well as younger students, all of which contribute to higher achievement” stated UWEZO report.
The government has taken a step to improve the education outcome from the public universal schools by setting physical and socioeconomic measures. At least 21 schools in the Western districts of the country have been commissioned to use the new infrastructure that was donated by the World Bank. The schools are part of the 138 which are spread out in the whole country.
While commissioning the buildings of Birere Mixed Primary School in Isingiro last week, Education Minister also First lady, Ms Janet Kataha Museveni said most the challenges of education have increased with years since its inception of UPE in 1997.
She said there is need to improve the skills but also the numbers of teachers in Primary schools as the number of those enrolling into education has continued to grow with the improvement of schools.
“Education has remained a major challenge in the country. It has become a major challenge especially in primary education. We have over eight million pupils in primary education which is challenging because the number of teachers trained does not match the pupils,” she said.
According to figures from Ministry of Education there are approximately 8.5 million pupils in primary school compared to 2.3 million before the introduction of UPE.
Mr Finhance Kakunda, the head teacher of Kijongo Primary school, which is under the UPE program said that they have seen the number of enrollment growing, some pupils are even coming from private schools to join us. “These new buildings have attracted them. This has lowered the pupil-teacher ratio. We have only 12 teachers and they will have to teach all these pupils,” Mr Katukunda says.
Figures from the pupil-teacher ratio portal platform as of 2012 indicates that at least a teacher is supposed to handle at least 25 to 30 pupils.
Mr Daniel Nkaada, the Commissioner for Basic Education at the Ministry of Education says this ratio has however, been fluctuating between 35 and 40 pupils per teacher given the growth in the number of pupils enrolling per year.
“When the number of students grows it means we have no choice but come up with other mechanisms. So we might have not been so standard with these numbers,” Mr Nkaada says.
Mr Timothy Buhaburwa, the director of Natra Uganda Limited, one of the companies contracted to build school blocks said they have taken about 12 months to finish the project in the midst of various challenges.
“Poor construction materials in Uganda and delayed release of the money we the major challenges but we are finally done with the work. We have finished in time and we are happy about it,” he said.