Key Takeaways from Janet Museveni Speech: New Universities; Seed Schools and Education Funding Boost

The Minister of Education and Sports and First Lady Janet Museveni addressed the media today at State House Nakasero and below are the keynotes from her speech which was aimed at updating the country on the education sector since the reopening of schools in January. 

Commissioning of Seed Secondary Schools under the UgIFT Program

I want to thank our leaders from both the central and local governments that have supported my Ministry with the commissioning of Seed Secondary Schools in over 48 districts.

We plan to commission more schools, especially the 69 that are already completed even as we look forward to the completion of the remaining schools that are still undergoing construction since the first phase of building 117 new Schools started in 2019.

I would like to reassure the public that though you may be hearing about the government commissioning Seed Schools in some sub-regions and districts, construction is still ongoing in 48 other Seed Schools in various sub-regions.

Overall, by end of 2024, the government expects to build a total of two hundred fifty-nine Seed Secondary Schools in Sub-Counties without any public secondary school through the initial financing facility of the five-year Uganda Inter-governmental Fiscal Transfer Program for Results (commonly referred to as UgIFT).

My Ministry is in the final stages of procurement of contractors for the second phase of UgIFT which shall see us embark on the construction of an additional 115 new Seed Secondary Schools sub-counties without any public Seed School.

However, an emerging challenge is that some contractors want to hand over schools for commissioning when in fact the construction is not complete. This is unacceptable and should never be allowed to happen. No Seed Secondary School should be commissioned when the infrastructure that is supposed to be built is not in place and complete.

Improvement in funding of Education and Sports Sector interventions in the Local Governments
I thought I would also use today’s opportunity to inform the public that the government provided a supplementary budget totaling Shs44.27 billion which has been made available to 176 Local Governments starting with the 4th Quarter of the current Financial Year to cater for:

i. Inspection, monitoring, and supervision of schools by the Education Office at the respective District, Municipality, or City to the tune of Shs3.96 billion.

ii. Capitation grant rates for the 70,712 learners with Special Needs Education in both public primary and secondary in beneficiary Local Governments have been increased by Uganda Shillings 194.14 million in total.

iii. Capitation grants for learners in public Technical Institutes, Community polytechnics, and Health training Institutions have been increased by a total of Shs. 6.81 billion. The capitation grant rate had stagnated these institutions since 2011.

iv. A total of Shs. 10.297 billion was apportioned amongst the 176 local governments to carry out minor maintenance of public Schools. This money is not sent to the schools but remains at the local government to apportion based on the schools that have been prioritized for minor repairs in the financial year.

v. This money for minor maintenance is neither part of capitation grants nor School Facilities Grant (commonly called SFG). Each Local government receives on average Shs58.5 million (some may receive less than this whereas other may get much more than this).

If a Local government decides to carry out minor renovations of its schools in a phased manner (a few schools at a time), these funds can make a significant difference in the appearance of some of the public schools in our local governments. Therefore, my call to our local government leaders is that we explore how to do better with what is received from government.

vi. Shs. 23 billion was released as supplementary budget to increase the capitation grant rate for the 7.6 million learners in 12,432 public primary schools from Shs17,000 at the start of the Financial Year in July 2021 to Shs20,000 target per learner annually that the government had set itself to be at by end of the current financial year.

I would like to remind the public that, firstly, there is considerable progress in Government’s effort to increase capitation grant rate in UPE which was at Shs7,000/= five years ago.

And, secondly, to inform the public that capitation grant sent to each beneficiary school is in addition to government paying the wages for staff as well as meeting the cost of instructional materials and major capital development expenses in these schools.

Validation exercise of Human Resources in Government Schools and Institutions

As some of you may remember, in September 2021, I announced that the Ministry of Education and Sports was going to undertake an exercise to ascertain the number of teachers and non-teaching staff in our Education Institutions of learning. I tasked the Education Service Commission to carry out this exercise as soon as the schools fully re-open.

As of today, the Education Service Commission has been able to go out in the field and compile payroll information from 1,570 government-owned and government-aided education institutions of learning. These include:

a) 1,365 Secondary Schools
b) 134 TVET Institutions
c) 20 Health training institutions
d) 51 teacher education and training institutions.

Let me remind the public that the intentions of this validation exercise are:

a) To verify the payroll data in each of these institutions.
b) To find out what the staffing gaps are in the institutions.
c) To establish the teaching load for teachers employed in government institutions, and lastly,
d) To identify cases of fraudulently hired staff.

Establishment of public Universities in Rwenzori, Bunyoro, and Busoga sub-regions

Government has earmarked Shs60.0 billion to operationalize Mountains of the Moon University in the Tooro and Rwenzori sub-regions in the financial year starting July 2022 and expedite the preliminary processes for operationalization of the public university for Busoga sub-region.

Funds have also been earmarked to establish a Taskforce as required by Law to embark on the establishment of a public university in Bunyoro sub-region in the financial year that starts July 2022.