As I got back from harvesting trees in a forest for timber and my construction gigs on the 29th of December 2022, I decided to get online and see what was happening in the world. I saw the "government cap on school fees" which got me thinking. I have met and worked with people who are not connected with reality in my line of work for example people living in the paved slams of Kampala who refuse to believe an average Ugandan spends Ugx 170,000/- on rent a month because it's what most of them spend on a meal.
The school fees Cap was not a disconnection from reality neither was it unadorned inanity but a blunt insult to hardworking Ugandans, from school owners to parents and everyone that depends on the education sector supply chain.
By New Vision
I need to be brought up to date but I don't think the government owns any schools in Uganda, even if the government-aided schools are blurred into the narrative. For the last 3 decades, the government has wholly let the model of a free market economy take a pivotal stage in the education sector. It is public understanding of schools being a business operated like any capitalist entity and education as a commodity in every sense of it.
When the government comes up with something and it runs in state-operated media outlets it is just proper to assume a faction of experts met at a given hotel with air-conditioned conference rooms with the best furniture and come up with the ideas. They were paid for their profession and a conclusion was reached. I have not gotten a chance to look at the full story in the papers but I bet it's an additional headache for those that purchased newspapers.
In Uganda, every school had its own way of operating and this affects the wages of the teachers get and the other staff. How an academic institution is run determines the quality of students that are produced. Some schools don't offer lunch while others treat their clients to meals that have dessert going by the school fees. They are schools that are operating under trees and others in the class that are soundproof and air-conditioned. The facilities that foster education techniques are determined by financial resources and a price cap can't stimulate that. But those that are not connected with reality can never get it.
If price Caps are being put in place for education as a sector, what happens to transport, what of health, what of housing, and real estate? Are they going to borrow to have some form of subsidy for the education sector? Why does the government wish to send the country into an economic wild-goose chase with price caps that are abrupt and dishonest?
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