Off to a Bad Start, Daily Brief 12 June, 2024

If Madagascar can do it, if Sierra Leone can do it, why can’t Uganda do it?

Other low-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa manage to offer children at least one year of free pre-primary education. But not Uganda.

Less than 10 percent of Ugandan children ages 3 to 5 are enrolled in a registered and licensed pre-primary school, known locally as “nursery” school.

Fees parents must pay for private preschools are usually too high, so most kids do not attend school until they reach primary school, at age six. Sometimes, young ones are sent to primary school before age six – that is, before they’re ready socially and developmentally – crowding classrooms for everyone.

This is damaging for the kids and damaging for the country. The pre-primary years are a critical time for children’s development. A new HRW report documents how lack of access to free pre-primary education leads to poorer performance later in primary school. More kids have to repeat a year, for example, and drop-out rates are higher.  

This all hits children’s lifelong prospects, thus undermining Uganda’s economic potential generally.

The Ugandan government introduced free primary education in 1997 and free secondary education in 2007. Over the years, they have made promises to add at least one year of free pre-primary education to the mix, but things aren’t moving as quickly as they should.

The main reason given – perhaps the only reason ever given – is money.

Last year, however, Uganda’s own Ministry of Education and Sports co-published a cost-benefit analysis of introducing pre-primary education in the country. It estimated 90 percent of the costs of scaling up pre-primary education could be covered through savings from fewer kids repeating a year and fewer underage kids enrolled in primary school.

Uganda is also not too poor to afford this. The World Bank charts Uganda’s gross national income per capita at US$930. Yes, that makes it a “low-income country,” but other countries even worse off manage to offer at least one year of free pre-primary education. Madagascar and Sierra Leone both have a gross national income per capita of only US$510.

The problem is not money but priorities. Uganda devotes only 8.4 percent of its national budget to education, while, for example, neighboring Kenya and Tanzania both allocate more than 18 percent.

Around the world today, most countries already guarantee at least one year of free pre-primary education. Uganda can afford to join them. In fact, it can’t afford not to.