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According to statistics from the Ministry of Education and Sports, the majority of literate Ugandans go through two basic levels of education i.e. primary and secondary schools and very few make progress to university and other tertiary institutions. For the period 1986-2004, enrollment in primary schools rose from over 2.2 million to over 7.3 million and over 123,000 to over 600,000 in secondary schools.
Out of these students, some Ugandans had a chance to attain pre-primary (pre-school) education from 59,829(795 schools) in 2001 to 64,484 pupils in 2003(893 schools).
However, due to low response rates in the annual school census in 2004, only pupils were registered from over 500 schools. The gap between primary and secondary school enrollments is very big, an indication that most Ugandans stop at the primary level of education since very few join post-primary institutions.
For example, in 2004 only over 32,000 were enrolled in post-primary institutions compared to 7.3 million and 0ver 600,000 enrolled in primary and secondary schools respectively.
The gap widened much further when Universal Primary Education (UPE) was introduced in 1997. Given that the UPE program has been in place for eight (8) years, it is a big challenge for the government and other stakeholders to manage the UPE thrust for the beneficiaries to continue to secondary and post-primary institutions in 2004 and beyond.
Ministry of Education and Sports reports continue to show that the enrolment of girls in secondary schools has persistently been low compared to boys. This for example was estimated at 21 percent for girls as compared to 23 percent for boys in 2017.
These are accompanied by glaring regional disparities, being worse in regions like Karamoja and Lango sub-regions. There is a need to reflect on key factors that have continued to hinder girls’ enrolment for secondary school education in Uganda.
By the end of 2021, it was reported that over 300,000 teenage births were recorded at health facilities – which accounted for seven percent of the annual average, and this was reported to be higher than the annual average registered in the previous five years.
This affected school continuation for girls even when schools opened in 2022, which has long-term effects on Uganda’s human capital and the future aspirations of girls.
Under the National Development Plan (NDPIII), Uganda committed to a reduction of adolescent pregnancy from 22 percent in the financial year 2020/21 to 15 percent by financial year 2025/26.
And by the fact that adolescents aged 10-19 years account for 26 percent of Uganda’s population, of whom 50 percent are females, it calls for intensive efforts by all concerned stakeholders to raise awareness in schools and communities on the dangers of teenage pregnancies and the importance of having girls in school.
Empower her to be the woman for a change
A study by the Economic Policy Research (EPR) that “in Uganda, women and girls spend around twenty hours per week on unpaid care work, twice as much time as men and boys”.
The World Bank’s 10th edition of Uganda’s economic update estimates the negative impact of child marriage, early childbearing, and the low educational attainment of the many girls affected by the two, on a wide range of development indicators.
Estimates of the cost of child marriage to the economy are also made. The cost of not taking action now is high and will run into billions of dollars a year by 2030.
It reviews the literature on the types of intervention that can work to empower adolescent girls, and specifically calls for greater investment in girls’ education; for providing opportunities to girls who are out of school and cannot go back; and for equipping adolescent girls with life skills and knowledge of reproductive health.
Help her meet women entrepreneurs’ demand to lead growth-oriented enterprises.
When given the opportunity, Ugandan women are eager to lead larger, more profitable businesses than micro- enterprises. Lack of access to sufficiently large loans is among the several constraints they face, and this could be eased by legislative improvements that specifically prohibit gender discrimination in access to credit. In addition, legislation is needed to guarantee gender equality in rights to inherit land and increase rates of women’s ownership rights over land, which is the main form of collateral required to secure larger loans from formal financial institutions.
Address women’s time poverty so that they can complete their education, acquire marketable skills, and work for pay outside the household.
A common factor to making all three possible is easing the care burden that women and older girls disproportionately carry in households. In addition to expanding access to early childhood education programs,
Education and empowerment closely connected
The report shows that close relationships exist between child marriage, teen pregnancy, and the low level of education reached by large numbers of girls. It shows that child marriage is likely to be the cause of more than half of babies born to under 18s in Uganda so that ending it could reduce early childbearing by the same amount.
This disproportion entrenches social gender norms that continue to disempower women and impede them from gaining quality employment. Unpaid care work absorbs a lot of women’s time and energy, reducing their competitiveness in the labour market.
Consequently, women are more inclined to accept lower-income and insecure jobs, often in the informal sector. That places women in an economically disempowered position vis-à-vis men. Over and above Uganda’s pledge to pursue gender equality and women’s empowerment, women’s work is also of significant importance to Uganda’s society.
Unpaid care work, including cooking, cleaning, and taking care of children, the elderly and the sick, has long been considered “a woman’s job”, profoundly ingrained due to religious and traditional fundamentalism that continues to see women as second-class citizens.
Unpaid care work plays an important role in the livelihoods and well-being of individuals and their families, as well as in the countries and community’s economic activity. In addition, SDG 5, Target 5.4 calls on countries to “recognize and value unpaid care work through the provision of public services, infrastructure, and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate”.