Writer: Musa Mugoya. PHOTO/COURTESY
Uganda occupies a leading role in granting access to primary and secondary education in sub-Saharan Africa. In 1997, Uganda commenced the implementation of the Universal Primary Education (UPE) programme.
Ten years later, in 2007, it became the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to introduce Universal Secondary Education (USE). Without doubt, the two programmes have expanded access to primary and secondary education.
However, there is no public pre-primary education programme. Section 10 (2) of the Education (Pre-primary, Primary and Post-primary) Act, 2008 solely places the obligation of establishing and running pre-primary schools under the private sector. The obligation of financing pre-primary education rests with the parents or guardians of the children.
The value of the pre-primary education is immense both to the children and the society. A research report: “Lay a Strong Foundation for All Children: Fees as a Discriminatory Barrier to Pre-Primary Education in Uganda” released last week by Human Rights Watch and the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER) highlights the socioeconomic benefits that the country is missing due to the absence of public pre-primary education and the feasibility of delivering the same to all children in the country.
Pre-primary education has profound long-term benefits for children’s cognitive and social development. The pace of brain development is at its highest in the first years of life, so this period represents a critical opportunity to make a positive difference in children’s lives. It also mitigates inequalities among children from families of different incomes and contributes to countries’ economic development. Access to pre-primary education improves employment prospects and earnings, resulting in increased tax revenues and GDP.
As a result of the absence of free public pre-primary education, fewer than one in 10 pre-primary aged children (ages three-five) are enrolled in a formal pre-primary school, and 60 percent attend no school at all. To make it worse, the fees are not regulated. The families have to contend with the exorbitant, and exploitative fees from the private schools. For example, in Kampala, the fees can reach Shs1,750,000 or more per child per term. For a full school year—three terms—fees for just one child at this rate represents more than two years’ wages for an average person in employment in Uganda and exceeds the annual tuition for many programmes at Uganda’s leading university, Makerere University.
The disparities in access to pre-primary schooling for low-income and rural families have lifelong consequences and exacerbate Uganda’s wealth inequality. Children who miss out on these foundational skills may never catch up to their peers.
A study by Unicef indicates that more than half of children, who do not attend pre-primary school end up repeating grades, at a significant cost to the government. The excessive repetition is resulting in 1.2 extra years of education per child with an estimated five to10 percent of the education budget wasted.
The delivery of free public preprimary education in Uganda is feasible. It only calls for efficiency in the education system. A 2023 cost-benefit study of pre-primary education in Uganda by Unicef and the Ministry of Education and Sports concluded that “investments in early childhood have the greatest rate of return of any human capital intervention.” The same study further estimated that for every shilling invested in pre-primary education can improve lifetime earnings, create new employment opportunities, and reduce primary school repetition rates.
The same study further estimated that Uganda could save Shs24.5 billion in repetition costs by 2030 by increasing pre-primary coverage to 90 percent. It also further estimated that 90 percent of the costs of scaling up free public pre-primary education could be covered through savings from reduced repetition rates and underage enrolment in primary school.
In comparative terms, there are several African countries, whose gross national income per capita is much less than that of Uganda but provide free public pre-primary education. These countries include, Sierra Leone, Togo and Madagascar. These three countries provide at least one year of free pre-primary education.
Uganda can also equally borrow a leaf from such low-income countries and provide free public pre-primary education, starting with one year. This can be done by attaching pre-primary units on all schools implementing UPE.
Musa Mugoya is the programme officer at Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER)
