The NRM government has made structural progress in the education sector. The turning point was the introduction of Universal Primary Education (UPE) in 1996 as a campaign strategy by President Yoweri Museveni who was standing for his first term of office.  

Implementation of UPE was in 1997 which has seen primary enrollment shoot from 2.5 million to 8 million pupils today with 60% of the pupils staying in school until they finish their education.

The girl-child enrollment also shot to 47% in rural areas and 49-50% in urban areas .

Each year, about 500,000 pupils have sat for  (PLE) under the UPE programme.

The initiative of UPE was a wider programme of free education that was part of Government's strategic intervention in eradicating household poverty.

It was anticipated that the money that parents spend on fees would rather improve household incomes.

Government's initiative of free education was anchored on a greater vision of having an enlightened and prosperous middle-class and industrialised society by the year 2025, and also achieving the second millennium development goal of free education for all by 2015.  

The entire free education policy was pegged to the Education Strategic Investment Plan (ESIP) framework, which was formulated by the education ministry in 1997 to work as a pivot of Government's commitment to addressing education as a development priority.

The National Development Plan (NDP)-which replaced the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) - focuses on education capacity to contribute to economic growth. Education is looked at as a resource that contributes to human capital development.

Against that backdrop, Government looked at free education as a strategic component in the general economic turn-around, factoring in the view that an educated masses would enhance good health, environmental protection and conservation, good governance, business and vocational knowledge, and among other economic fundamentals.   

Billions sunk in free education
Throughout the first ten years of implementation of UPE (1997-2007), Government has devoted huge budgetary allocations towards the UPE programme. For instance in 1996, Government expenditure increased by 30% from Shs 44 bn to Shs136 bn in 1998. The expenditure kept on increasing to about 700bn in the financial years 2007/2008 and 2008/2009.

Besides Government's funding, the development partners, particularly the World Bank, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Netherlands government and among other donors have consistently injected billions each year to free education.

From the inception of the programme todate, Government has constructed a total of 80,000 classrooms in 10,500 government- aided schools.   
Universal secondary education

In a space of ten years, from the time of implementation of the UPE programme to the period following the 2006 general elections, Government, again, made another offer of free secondary education.

There were concerns by poor parents that their children had nowhere to go soon after completing primary education. Indeed, some of the best brains were wasted away in the communities chasing errands or looking for ways of earning a living. The girls had no option but to get married quickly.

Universal Secondary Education (USE) is now entering its fifth year since its inception in 2007, and the programme boasts of a student enrollment of 1.5 million.

With the recently introduced policy of free A' level education, more and more students will be able to proceed to the next stage and be able to finish secondary school without paying a penny.

Polytechnic in each sub county
Under the Universal Post Primary Education and Training (UPPET) programme, Government has embarked on a rather ambitious scheme of building up to 850 polytechnics which are to be spread out in various districts.

The future plan is to have at least one polytechnic in every sub county to promote vocational skills development in the country.

Students hailing from poor backgrounds need not worry about how they will access university education as Government is finalising on a loan scheme that will see students borrow loans from financial institution and then pay back at the end of their sturdy course.  

Where is the problem?
Though the NRM Government has made giant strides in providing basic education, there are still concerns with the way the programme is being implemented.

Analysts contend that Government is focusing a lot on mass enrollment without considering the quality of education offered, and what kind of economy Uganda will be with people who can hardly read or write their names despite them having received free education.

The recently-released PLE results paint a gloomy picture of the entire UPE system. More than 500,000 P7 candidates sat PLE last year, and more than half that number failed the exams, with about 60,000 candidates having to repeat P7 this year.

An independent survey carried out by Sunrise indicates that most of the schools that performed well were privately owned whereas the failures were registered in government-aided UPE schools.   

There are also issues to do with training and payment of teachers in UPE and USE with teachers receiving little pay and yet they are not expected to get any extra funding inform of welfare grants from parents under the traditional Teachers-Parents Associations (PTAs). Little wonder, the UPE teachers are reported to absent themselves from duty as they have to make ends meet somewhere else to augment their meager earnings of Shs 200,000, before income tax.

Whereas Government has constructed more classrooms to accommodate the swelling UPE numbers, these pupils have nowhere to sit- as they have to sit on the ground- and do not have enough writing space.

Studies show that upper primary, where particularly Primary Seven (P7) candidates sit on desks, the retention rate has remained as high as 80% compared to lower primary where pupils sit on the floor with a retention rate of only 30%.

Matters are not helped by the policy of automatic promotion in the UPE and now USE schools without considering whether pupils/students performed well or not. Government has often argued that automatic promotion is meant to address the challenge of congestion in classrooms by providing space for newcomers.

Education commercialised, poor lose-out
Under the Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs), Government promoted liberalisation, which was also effected in the education sector. The liberalisation of education has created an imbalance in the education system where the rich take their children to good quality private schools whilst the poor consume low quality education in the form of UPE.

Analysts also point out that Government has abdicated its role in education, while placing the affairs of schools in the hands of private individuals. In government-aided secondary schools, for example, Headteachers and school management committees increase fees as and when they want without consulting other education stakeholders like parents.

University for only the rich?
In the early 1990s, Government opened up university education to private sponsorship. Each year, Government sponsors about 4000 students to study in the various public universities.

It's those hailing from rich homes that would make it to public and private universities for self-sponsorship. The poor can't access university and tertiary education due to the high charges.

For instance, in the recent past, Government decided to increase fees across all public universities, a move that sparked off violent demonstrations at some universities like Makerere and Kyambogo.

Even the halls of residence at Makerere University have since been privatised, with students admitted under government sponsorship having to pay for accommodation.