Uganda’s Education Sector: Privately Owned Schools Surging

As the new academic year kicks off and with new senior one entrants and soon the senior five students, it is a common experience for parents, guardians and students alike to be at crossroads at what probable schools one can join.

The Education sector in Uganda accounts for about 5% of the Country’s GDP. Uganda boasts of being the hub of formal education given the high influx of foreign students from the region. It consists of primary level education, secondary, tertiary and vocational level education.

There has been tremendous growth in investment in the education sector as a result of Government’s deliberate effort to liberalize the economy and further creating a favourable environment thereby encouraging private sector investment. The government retains the regulatory and supervisory function as well as curriculum development.

Uganda enjoys a comparative advantage in East Africa due to good curriculum, lower tuition and student maintenance costs, and English being the main language of instruction. This has led to an influx of students from the East African region including Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Congo and South Sudan. There are opportunities on skills based education other than only formal education that can feed into other sectors like manufacturing, tourism etc and take advantage of the EAC market.

According to the institute of export and international trade of the UK on the Provision of secondary education in Uganda,   the absorption capacity for post-primary/secondary education only allows for less than half the number of students leaving primary education.

Private schools started operating as far back as the 1950s and the many government schools we see today such as Kisubi Secondary School, Mengo Senior School, Ndejje Secondary School, Kibuli Secondary School and Mt. St. Mary’s College, Namagunga, among others were originally private institutions. These are also classified under faith-based schools such as Bugema Adventists Secondary School, Seroma Christian High School and Gombe Secondary School, among others and secular schools such as Old Kampala Secondary School, St Mark’s College, Namagoma among others.

The last 22 years have seen an expansionist strategy by the sector, mainly to increase access to learners at all levels of education. Since 1997, the education sector has been on an expansionist strategy, which saw the launch of Universal Primary Education (UPE), which led to an explosion in enrolment numbers. This was followed by Universal Secondary Education (USE), to cater for the increased numbers completing P7.

Years later, the expansive drive saw the implementation of Universal Post O-level Education and Training (UPOLET) to cater for those completing their Uganda Certificate of Education or senior four.

However, with the gains from these interventions, the ministry recently announced a raft of new initiatives. Dressed as the Education and Sports Sector Strategic Plan 2019-2020, the moves will see the sector going for ‘more focused strategic interventions’. Currently however, here is how the private school influence has featured in Uganda’s Education sector at every level of education, as below in the detailed statics of private schools in Uganda per category.

Private Schools by Category

Details of School Types