Last month in New York at the UN General Assembly, Uganda’s First Lady and Education Minister discussed with GPE Board Chair Julia Gillard her country’s intention to start a new partnership with GPE. In the same meeting, the First Lady assured Ms. Gillard of her leadership for achieving the results of the ongoing partnership in Uganda.
So what are the key features of Uganda’ s education sector and GPE’s engagement in Uganda? The current GPE grant is a US$100 million 4-year program called Uganda Teacher and School Support Program, with the World Bank as grant agent. Started in 2015, the program is expected to benefit over 8 million students, teachers, head teachers and school managers across the country by the time it is completed.
GPE supports results-based program for better systems
Between 1999 and 2010, Uganda made tremendous progress and tripled the number of children in school, from around 3 million to 9 million. However, Uganda students were not learning enough, and completion rates in primary schools were low. The GPE-supported program was designed to build on Uganda’s impressive progress in enrollment and improve learning outcomes and completion rates.
The program has supported training of 22,171 teachers so far in early grade literacy and numeracy teaching techniques, procurement and distribution of over 7 million textbooks and teacher guides, initiated the construction of 83 new schools and developed training for head teachers and district level education officers.
The program was revised earlier this year to increase the focus on effective results for the sector. One of the main features of the restructuring was a new result target to increase teacher attendance in areas where the program is implemented.
Uganda includes refugee children in school but needs more external support
But low teacher attendance and a high student-textbooks ratio are not the only challenges in Uganda. The recent influx of refugees, most of them fleeing violence in South Sudan, created a huge pressure on the education system. According to UNHCR, 10 out of Uganda’s 110 districts are hosting a total number 1.3 million refugees, of which 86% are women and children. Uganda is committed to providing education to refugee children and the international community is fully supportive of the country’s efforts in doing so.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in its 2017 Uganda Refugees Response Plan asked for US$55.8 million to support education. Only US$2.7 million has been raised1 at the beginning of this month. In parallel to UNHCR fundraising efforts, the Education Cannot Wait fund allocated US$3.3 million in June and is in the process of finalizing the implementation arrangements.
Other humanitarian organizations have also raised funds for education, but often these are not captured in the UNHCR reports and still don’t cover the enormous needs that Uganda faces to ensure all children, Ugandan and refugees, have access to education and learn.
I participated in an ECW-led mission in September: it facilitated a workshop in Kampala to support ongoing efforts by the education ministry and development partners to develop a comprehensive development plan for refugees and host communities. A taskforce led by the UK will oversee delivering the plan, which will bring in long-term development resources to tackle the negative impact of the crisis on Uganda’s education system. The plan is expected to be done by November 2017.
Next round of GPE support
GPE remains committed to the long-term and sustainable development of Uganda’s education system. The results of the current program, the support to the next education sector plan for the coming five years and a new potential GPE grant in 2018 will all contribute to that commitment.
- UNHCR Contribution Earmarking Report. October 3, 2017.