KAMPALA: Following public outcry over high school fees and related charges, Andrew Karamagi, a city lawyer, has drafted a Bill that seeks to regulate the practice.
According to Karamagi, his Bill doesn’t tackle the root cause(s) of the crisis, but it proffers some much-needed reliefs.
“Commercialization of education perpetrates socioeconomic inequalities, and hampers human capital development,” he said while sharing a snapshot of the Bill on Tuesday, 11 January 2022.
He appealed to MPs to reach out to him, adopt and table it on the floor of Parliament.
“Seeing how parents, guardians, & learners are suffering, I’ve prepared a draft Bill for the regulation of tuition, school fees, and related charges. Would like a serious Member of Parliament to adopt and table it. Interested MPs should send me a message. I’ll mail it to you,” he said.
“All I need is an assurance that you (the MP) will not sell out. This proposal will be fought hammer and tongs because it threatens a syndicated web of interests,” he added.
Mr Karamagi explained that education, especially for an underdeveloped society, should be high quality and accessible.
“It is a strategic social good, not a commodity or a business venture,” he explained.
Karamagi said at present, education in Uganda has, since its privatization in 1993/4, steadily become less of a service, but a highly commercialized venture.
“This has distorted public and private incentives for a functional public education sector, relegated millions of children to the derelict Universal Primary and Universal Secondary Education public-funded option, better known as “bonna bakone” (worthless education), and encouraged the unregulated proliferation of schools, without benchmarks, less so the implementation of curricula, pedagogies, and other standards,” he said.
“This Bill will avert the growing challenge of socioeconomic inequality which is perpetrated by disparate standards and increasingly unaffordable education.
By delimiting the parameters for payments related to learning, the Bill to regulate tuition, school fees, related charges and costs will lay a progressive foundation for holistic, countrywide, and shared human capital development,” he added.
Most schools countrywide increased charges in disregard of a recent government directive.
Even traditional schools have had their tuition for new entrants in both Senior One and Senior Five raised to above Shs1m, citing high cost of living and Covid-induced debts.
Government has repeatedly warned all schools against hiking their fees ahead of the reopening of schools next week.
The Education Permanent Secretary, Ms Ketty Lamaro, last week issued Covid-19 emergency guidelines and ordered that “Education institutions shall not increase fees from what was charged for first term 2020.”