(This article was first published in the New Vision on October 12, 2022)
By Patrick Kaboyo
On September 6, I was joined by Dr Denis Mugimba, the spokesperson of the education ministry, to discuss issues of school fees on a radio talk show. During the discussion, Mugimba raised a number of policy issues that were unusual to the public.
I inquired from him whether the ministry had consulted key stakeholders on what was termed as the statutory instrument by the minister to cap school fees. In his response, Mugimba stated that, indeed consultations were necessary and that they were planning to make them. From that point, as learned friends say, I rested my case.
I was perplexed to read in the newspapers later that the statutory instrument to cap school fees had already been submitted to the Solicitor General. Since the Solicitor General never minced his words, but rather queried the due process of policy formulation, it is crucial for us to interrogate the “mensrea” of the framers of the said document.
The ministry should be alive to the issues on ground and follow due processes in formulating policy. Policies can never be made without wide consultation from those intended to be served. The state of affairs as far as capping school fees is concerned confirms that the space for meaningful stakeholder engagement between the Ministry of Education and Sports and its key stakeholders is narrowing.
It is not right that key stakeholders choose to use other means of engagement, other than the known official channels, including, meetings, for policy formulation, right from sector working groups to top management.
To help the Government deliver better on its mandate, I will offer guidance to aid technical teams at the ministry. Firstly, it is not feasible and rational to believe that school fees can be capped in private education institutions before addressing the big elephant in the room, which is the conflict of interest.
Secondly, capping of school fees cannot be done in a free market economy in which both the public and private school operators are implementing private economic schemes within known structures of tuition generation.
Thirdly, with dysfunctional school governance structures across the board, good governance and accountability in our schools must be addressed first.
Also, since we chose to liberalise the education sector without reservation, it is an uphill task to cap fees.
Further, it is a fact that the regulators are the same people collecting outrageous fees from parents who send children to their schools. It is impractical to think that they will bell the cat.
Also, capping fees in educational institutions should be the business of the Education Policy Review Commission. Since the ministry seems to be leaving the public behind in policy formulation, it is prudent that it considers the following; undertake a comprehensive and inclusive study to scientifically and professionally base its actions on evidence, to debunk the raging suspicion among the public, urgently review existing literature on the same subject matter, notably the Gonahasa Report of 1993 on the same recurring issues. School charges were pointed out in the report which was submitted to the Minister of Education and Sports then.
The ministry should comprehensively review and reflect on all the recommendations that the Gonahasa report documented and widely consult parents, teachers, students, civil society, religious leaders and the academia to promote credibility and ownership.
The need for consultation of key stakeholders is premised on the fact that parents are the chief funders of education in this country rather than the Government. The Government should pick lessons from our neighbour’s “Building back, better from the bottom-up strategy” to ensure that all policies are inevitably consultative. People must be consulted before drafting any policy, as well as be given feedback
The writer is the technical advisor at Education Advocacy Network
