The Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) has asked the government to allocate more funds to the education sector to reduce on the number of school dropouts.
The head of media and communications Muzeyi Faisal while addressing the media at the party headquarters at Uganda house in Kampala on January, 29, 2025 Muzeyi, said that the government needs to prioritize funding the education sector to reduce the number of school drop outs and also help improve performance of government schools.
“The government needs to fund these government schools so that we can deal away with the many challenges that affect output, you can’t allocate every child only 20,000 UGX per year and expect better results,” Muzeyi said.
He said that other problems related to funding include congested classrooms, under paid teachers, lack of accommodation for teachers, and schools failing to provide regular meals to the pupils which affects learning.
The party also raised concerns over poor teacher remuneration and inadequate accommodation, which negatively impact learning outcomes.
UPC criticised the failure to implement the government’s proposal of providing each pupil with a glass of milk and an egg daily, citing hunger as a major barrier to effective learning.
“Many parents and school authorities opposed this plan due to economic constraints, yet we cannot expect children to learn on an empty stomach,” Muzeyi said.
He said that other problems related to funding include congested classrooms, under paid teachers, lack of accommodation for teachers, and schools failing to provide regular meals to the pupils which affects learning.
The ministry of Education 2024 report has it that only over 3 million pupils sat for PLE in 2024 out of the seven (7) million pupils who enrolled for a seven-years cycle from primary one to primary seven in 2018.
“UPC and the rest of the stakeholders in the country would like to know where the missing 4.5 million pupils who did not complete the seven-year cycle of primary education are as well as those who registered for PLE but dropped out along the way, which situation extends to both secondary and high learning institutions,” Muzeyi added.
On Thursday January 23, 2025, the Ministry of Education and Sports released the Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) results which showed that private schools performed better than government schools in PLE and this has been the trend for UCE results and UACE results. Muzeyi Faisal
