High school fees; origins of the rope around Ugandans’ necks

Parents could afford to pay school dues for six children plus others from the extended family and stay standing.

So, what has changed considering now that the economy has been steadily growing for the last 35 years at a rate of almost 5 percent? Also noted is that there is increased bilateral and multilateral aid, flow of Foreign Direct Investment, relative peace and stability and according to World Bank figures, more people have been moved out of poverty. Uganda is getting record revenue from export of coffee (close to $1.1 billion) and the tax revenue to GDP has grown exponentially compared to the pre-NRM years. The fact that a lot of dividends from whatever growth Uganda has had in the last 30 plus years have been stolen by individuals with power and pilfered out of the country is another matter altogether.

 Challenges with school dues started in the late 80s and 90s when Uganda went on a borrowing spree from the World Bank and the IMF. It adopted the neo-liberalism policies that emphasised privatisation, restructuring, deregulation, retrenchment, removal of subsidies especially for social services like education and other austerity measures that came as ‘conditions,’ to qualify for aid. 

The government from then on would at most sponsor policies to guide the economy which it left to private hands or the market forces of demand and supply. Ugandans woke up to strikes at Makerere University in the 90s when students protested the removal of allowances (boom) as the government claimed education was not a priority.

Interestingly many of the NRM government ministers and officials who sold this line came from very obscure backgrounds characterised by poverty. They benefited from free education courtesy of the state. Now that the boat had arrived safely at the shore, they deemed it useless. Gradually the government withdrew save for some government and State House sponsorship which has been riddled with accusation of favouritism and even nepotism.

Ironically at the lower levels of primary and secondary education it came up with the concept of ‘free’ universal primary education (UPE) and universal secondary education (USE.) Here the government pays about Shs17,000 and Shs56,000 per student annually as a capitation grant to support the learners respectively. This is peanuts and what has happened is that the standard of education in government schools has all but gone down the drain with record failure rates. Many of the schools are housed in ramshackle buildings, others in mud and wattle structures while others are under trees - conditions that are not conducive for teaching or learning.  In 2016 the Daily Monitor  reported that a government self-assessment report revealed that 34 percent of teachers did not know English, which is the main language of instruction while 40 percent are incompetent in primary mathematics.  It revealed that over 50 percent of the pupils in UPE were illiterate and could not answer simple questions in mathematics. I remember feeling weak in the knees while looking through the books of a child for whom I paid fees. The question ‘what is ATM in full?’ got a tick and ‘very good,’ for the answer ‘Automatic TERROR Machine!’ 

The good government schools back in the day like Kitante Primary School, Nakasero Primary School, Buganda Road Primary School, etc have suffered immensely. They are overcrowded, underfunded, understaffed and overwhelmed. They are a shadow of what they were. They are now the port of call for the urban and rural struggling poor who have no economic security and alternatives.  It is a high mountain to climb for the pupils there.

As all this has been happening private schools have mushroomed with average fees of about Shs2 million and rising. They are better staffed, facilitated and perform much better in national exams.  Many of these are owned and operated by senior civil servants and politicians some of whom are in charge of policies that impinge the education sector. In reality they are gleefully profiting from presiding over the collapse of public education.  This is the grim story of neoliberalism. The smartest people in the room vie for political power on which they leverage to destroy public goods for private gain. They do this to control society.

First, those for financial reasons, shut out from accessing quality social services like education will most likely end up as the third-rate citizens who can only cheer and follow those in power without question. They will also be the ones who, for little pay, will provide cheap labour as hewers of wood and drawers of water for the capitalists or investors.

That is why migrant labour from Africa is now big business. Secondly, they humiliate the middle and working classes by making social services expensive to the extent that they have to work all their lives; living on the brink, surviving in debt without saving. Many have to get school fees loans at high interest rates from the banks associated with the politicians who own the schools or sell land and other assets again to the politicians who own the schools, just to keep children in their schools.  This is because the ‘free’ market gives them a Hobson’s choice. Take the child to the slaughter house which is the government school or break an arm and a leg to go to the private school and ensure that their child gets to learn. That is why the line at the bursar’s office keeps growing longer and has many people asking for extra time like a football game that is in a stalemate.

Mr Sengoba is a commentator on political and social issues

Twitter: @nsengoba