Uganda

General Survey: Preprimary children can begin school at age three. Most urban areas have fine preschool facilities. Preschool is very commercial, and the private sector dominates such schools. The government is concerned about the lack of regulation at this level. Fees are often seen as excessive and exclusionary. The quality of education is very uneven, as are teaching methods, facilities, and alleged violations of sound pedagogical principles of child psychology and development. The problem with the better schools is competition, which is so high for the few positions available that parents must literally enroll the child at birth to assure that the child will find a place in these preschools.

The main problem facing primary educators in Uganda is budgetary. Beyond this there is a great disparity between the education available in cities and in remote rural areas. This attracts Ugandans to cities like a magnet and is the source of many urban problems when unsuccessful students drop out and take to crime or other self-help activities to support themselves. More vocational training is being introduced into primary school curriculums in an attempt to address this problem.

Urban & Rural Schools: The distribution of education at the primary level is reasonably well balanced throughout Uganda, with the exception of Karamoja in the north, where the people and climate are more Sudanese in character than Ugandan. The Karamojong and other ethnic groups little respect national boundaries and migrate freely between Uganda and the Sudan in search of grazing pastures for their livestock and water. The highly mobile lifestyle of this population makes it difficult to meet their educational needs. Special educational grants are supplied to schools in Karamoja to address this problem. Enrollment ratios in each province are within 15 percent of the national average, except for Karamoja (Helleiner 1979), where only 17.5 percent of eligible children are enrolled. Given the chronic fighting, drought, migrations, and other problems that torture this population, even this number is remarkable.

The introduction by the government of Sudan in Khartoum of slavery as a weapon of war against Africans in the south of the Sudan encourages large flows of migrants into Uganda, which further complicates educational planning in northern Uganda. Despite its problems, Uganda has never, in recent years, subjected its populations to the horrors of slavery. The same cannot be said for the Sudan and Mauritania.

Curriculum: Primary students study arithmetic, natural science, farming, health, reading, writing, music, English, religion, and physical education in grades one and two. Grades two through seven add art, crafts, language, history, geography (often of England and the United States), and cooking and domestic science for young girls. Curriculums are established by the National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC). Panels of teachers and members of examination boards, university professors, and educational inspectors review all curricula. The NCDC examines syllabi and textbooks, as well as teachers guides. They even write textbooks or recommend revisions. The Ministry of Education implements the recommendations of the NCDC. Many primary schools have libraries to encourage the habit of reading as a lifelong activity. Radio lessons are provided for in-service teacher training and personnel development, as well as for English language instruction. Radios are common even in the remotest parts of Karamoja, so this is an effective means of reaching many isolated populations that might otherwise not be served.

Teachers: Primary school teachers are very mobile, and there is a persistent shortage of such teachers. In 1979, some 16.2 percent of approved teaching positions were unfilled. In 1980 there were 38,422 primary school teachers in almost 4,500 schools. The teacher-pupil ratio was about 1:34. Most were trained in grade three teacher training colleges. This means that these teachers have at least finished secondary school before being admitted to grade two teacher training. In the past they could teach primary school if they had finished grade seven. A few unqualified teachers from the old system are still teaching but they are being phased out.

Repeaters & Dropouts: High drop out rates are a major problem in Uganda. In 1981, approximately 23 percent of primary school aged children were enrolled in school. By grade seven only 10 percent of the children who entered grade one were still in school. Approximately 10 percent of students in government schools are repeating a grade. The highest incidence of grade repeating is in grades one through six.