KAMPALA – Human rights activists in collaboration with Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER), an independent, not-for-profit human rights organization responsible for promoting the effective understanding, monitoring, implementation, and realization of economic and social rights in Uganda have on Monday sued the government for failing to regulate schools which have hiked school fees and school requirements amid reopening.
Uganda’s education sector has been on Covid-19 shut down for close to two years since March 2020. Upon reopening on Monday, January 10, 2022, several parents and guardians revealed that they can no longer afford to take back their children to schools because of hiked school fees and other related items.
Activists and lawyers, Andrew Karamagi and Michael Aboneka under the Coalition for Quality and Affordable Education in Uganda (COQUE) together with ISER in their lawsuit filed to the High Court, say that as a result of the recent resumption and opening of schools, education institutions and universities and other tertiary institutions, without any authorization/on, formula and/or justification, have wantonly taken advantage of the same and charged exorbitant and extortive school fees, together with lists of unnecessary school requirements to be borne by the parents, guardians, and learners.
These want the court to immediately ban the mandatory solicitation of “school requirements” and any other non-cash contributions requested for by any school, including international schools, at all the four levels of education in Uganda that are not directly related to learning as per the approved curricular as provided for under Sections 3, 5, 57(j) of the Education (Pre Primary, Primary and Post Primary) Act, 2008.
“The State has the primary role to provide education to its citizens under Objective XVII of the of the National and Directive Principles of State Policy and Article 30 of the 1995 Constitution of Uganda and that the Minister has a statutory duty to ensure that national policies and objectives as enshrined in the Constitution are implemented and observed at all levels of education,” they said.
In their lawsuit, the activists and ISER want the court to order the Minister of Education and Sports to immediately exercise her statutory obligation to perform her duties and exercise her mandate to regulate fees, charges, dues payable at any school, education institution including international institutions in Uganda.
They also want the Minster to immediately regulate gender aspects and special needs education to wit: a deterrent legal framework against discrimination of pregnant girls and nursing mothers and providing for facilities for them in all schools and education institutions.
“Uganda is a signatory to the Declaration on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 which provides under Article 28 for States Parties to recognize the right of the child to education, with a view to achieving this right progressively, based on equal opportunity.”
They revealed that the absence of a policy or legal framework to regulate the fees’ structure, including non-tuition payments such as “school requirements” has encouraged schools, education and universities and other tertiary institutions to exploit this inadequacy with each charging different, often disparate, and exorbitant tuition and non-tuition fees.
“The omission by the Minister of Education to regulate the wanton demand of unnecessary school requirements and other non-cash contributions by schools and other educational institutions under sections 2(1), 3(2)(b), 5(4) & 57(j) of the Education (Pre-Primary. Primary and Post Primary Act, 2003 has given leeway to the wanton behavior of schools, both private and public, to continually demand unconscionable school requirements,” they said.
Addressing the media at Centre for Constitutional Governance offices in Ntinda on January 13, the activists revealed that they collaborated on the development of a draft law to establish an affordable, equitable, and coherent tuition and school fees regime through legislation.
They said the object of this Bill is to provide for the regulation of tuition, school fees, related charges, and costs required by all education service providers that operate under licenses issued by the Ministry of Education. Hereunder, service providers shall mean and include government-owned, partially government-owned, and privately held institutions.
They asked the MPs to take up the draft and support in the Parliament.
According to them, the Bill seeks to establish a coherent structure of payments across the country’s learning institutions, eradicate harmful aspects of the commercialization of education, and reorient education as a socio-economic imperative that will propel human capital development, which is a strategic development objective.
“The members of this Coalition are available to provide technical support for this process. Specifically, we are willing to contribute towards the drafting process, raise the awareness of citizens, and facilitate learning sessions about the strategic importance of frontline services like education.”
