Debate on skyrocketing school fees returns to Parliament as academic year opens

The debate about the skyrocketing school fees in both top public schools and private schools in the country has been on in the public for a number of years without parity.

Parents looking for quality education continue to pay through the nose despite there being the Universal Primary Education (UPE) and Universal Secondary Education (USE).

Several public schools especially those implementing the USE continue to raise functional fees for students claiming that the capitation grant from the government is “not enough” to run the institutions while those who choose to take their children to private schools have a story of their own to tell.

One week into the first term of the 2024 education calendar, Parliamentarians were up in the arms against the schools that continue to charge hefty school prices at a time when most of the parents are not doing well economically.

As a result, Parliament invited Education Minister, Janet Kataha Museveni to present a statement on the measures her ministry is taking to control exorbitant charging of school fees in schools. While Mrs Museveni did not make it to Parliament, State Minister for Education (Primary), Joyce Moriku Kaducu presented a statement last week on behalf of the First Lady.

Kaducu informed Parliament that after the Ministry of Education and Sports realized that the “prohibitive schools fees” charges were denying access to education for many learners, the First Lady, set up a school fees review committee chaired by Prof. Fredrick Kayanja as early as 2017.

She said that after the committee conducted a study and made findings, a number of recommendations were put in a circular issued by the Ministry in 2022. In the circular which remains in force, the Ministry instructed the schools not to increase school fees without written authorisation from the Permanent Secretary or District Chief Administrative Officer or Municipal Town Clerk.

“The Ministry is embarking on the process of implementing compulsory free universal education for all and will brief Parliament accordingly on the progress at an appropriate time. However, it is important to note that Cabinet under Minute 109 (CT 2023) approved a list of unacceptable items which schools are not allowed to charge including fees for remedial learning and construction,” stated Kaducu.

MPs demand

John Katwesigye, Chairperson of Parliamentary Committee on Education and Sports said that the Ministry has now provided informed it had not availed to the legislators last year when they were traversing the country to assess the school fees being charged by public schools that are under USE and UPE.

He said the reason Parliament threw out the report of his committee in February last year is that the Committee had not put enough details, the documents of which the Ministry had not availed.

He requested that the rejected Committee report be accommodated on the order paper as they will work with Minister Kaducu and motion mover, Sarah Opendi to improve it with details in the annexes provided by the Ministry of Education in the latest statement.

Parliament now wants the Committee to expeditiously work with the Minister and Opendi to address the gaps in the report so that it is presented and debated before it is too late.

Rejected report

In February last year, Deputy Speaker, Thomas Tayebwa gave the Committee an extra one month to improve its report before being presented again after legislators punched holes in it. It is now a year since the Committee was sent back to work on the report on exorbitant school fees but with no avail.

“Chairperson (of the Committee), you have seen the mood in the House but also when you do reports of that nature, they should be national character. You go back, consider this report and issues of members and report back after one month” ruled Tayebwa then.

In the report, the Committee had informed the House that it had sampled only six government aided secondary schools while investigating charging of high fees. The schools visited include, Kibuli SS, Gayaza High School, Kings College Budo; Kawempe Muslim SS; Nabisusa Girls SS and St Mary’s College Kisubi.

According to the report, of all the schools sampled, only Kibuli SS had increased school fees for the first time in 8 years with permission from the Ministry of Education and Sports.

The committee had recommended that; “the government should as a matter of urgency come up with a statutory instrument to regulate the school fees charged by all schools, and also fasten the process of increasing salaries for all teachers to avoid the glaring salary disparities”

However, in a minority report, Luwero District woman MP Brenda Nabukenya pointed out the weaknesses of the current law the Education Act, 2015 hence failing to address the regulation of school fees in government aided schools.

While debating the report, the legislators punched holes in the Committee report and demanded that more is done by the government to ensure the parents are not cheated by top schools.

Opendi told Parliament that the Committee had not exhausted the issues that she had raised in the motion presented in February last year and that the delay has subjected parents to cheating by schools.  

“The Committee in the report has ignored the critical issues. Why government granted schools charge school fees higher than the private schools. You have a government aided school receiving grants. The government puts in a lot of money, paying 70 percent of the staff” said Opendi.

She also said that the schools always effect these increments in functional fees like development fees, application fees and insurance fees among others hence putting poor parents at a burden of paying higher for secondary education than university education.

The legislators also said that the report of the Committee did not have a national outlook because the sample picked during investigations is from only the central region.

“The issues we are talking about today are of a national character. All the schools used for analysis are from greater Kampala and there is no way a parliament with a national character can agree to pronounce itself on a subject of this matter” said Alex Ndeize, the Persons with Disabilities representative.

The MPs also called for the amendment of the Education Act in order to address the loopholes in the education sector so that nobody is left behind whether in private or public schools.

Sheema South MP Prof Elijjah Mushemeza suggested that the government needs to come up with projects that will earn income for the schools in order to help them mitigate the harsh economic conditions other than putting the entire burden on the parents.

“When you look at what is being charged in government and private schools cited, it borders on exploitation. There is no justification for a school to charge Shs2m” added Prof Mushemeza.

Speaking during the debate last year, Peter Ogwang, State Minister for Education (in charge of Sports) said the Ministry will take into consideration all the issues raised by the legislators. He said that a policy guideline has been tabled before Cabinet and when it is approved, the Ministry will present it to Parliament for final approval before being implemented. To date, the policy guideline has not been present to Parliament.

The government in 2022 released a School Fees Regulatory Policy that targeted capping the school fees supposed to be charged by private schools.

According to the policy, private schools have been set a starting point of at least Shs260,000 and at most Shs1.6 million, depending on the nature of the schools, location, staff salaries, feeding of learners and administration costs, among others.

School administrators who will fall short of this policy would, upon conviction, be imprisoned for a period not more than 1 year.