Education Research
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ABSTRACT
Universal Secondary Education (USE) was introduced in 2007 to follow Universal Primary Education and eliminates tuition fees for students in Senior 1 through Senior 4 in participating schools. To research the challenges for teachers in USE schools, the researcher used methods of participant observation at a USE school, interviews, focus group discussions, and literature review. Universal Secondary Education has expanded access for many Ugandan families to secondary education, including some of the vulnerable poor who would not have even considered secondary school without this policy. However, the overwhelming numbers of students taking part in USE place pressure on the teachers, facilities, and funds. The quality of secondary education has begun to suffer, whereas Uganda’s goal is to improve the quality of its education system.
Challenges that teachers face include overcrowded schools and classrooms, poor salaries, communication and language barriers, lack of teaching and learning materials, too few classrooms and labs, indiscipline in students, economic poverty of their students, poor time management, lack of capacity building, and difficulty taking medical leaves. USE policy contributes to the aforementioned challenges and sparks challenges because it is a top-down policy, it is inadequately funded, was poorly planned, bases education on lectures and exams, includes policies of automatic promotion and double-shift, and creates a lack of ownership of education because tuition is free. Education in Uganda, particularly secondary education should be a right according to most but is a privilege in practice because of limited economic resources. The following are recommendations to improve the quality of education: increase overall funding, drastically reduce class sizes, rethink the “universal” goal which is unrealistic with current budget, subsidize education instead of fully funding tuition, involve all stakeholders in decisions and policy, decentralize secondary education, and introduce more critical thinking into the curriculum.
Universal Secondary Education (USE) was introduced in 2007 to follow Universal Primary Education and eliminates tuition fees for students in Senior 1 through Senior 4 in participating schools. To research the challenges for teachers in USE schools, the researcher used methods of participant observation at a USE school, interviews, focus group discussions, and literature review. Universal Secondary Education has expanded access for many Ugandan families to secondary education, including some of the vulnerable poor who would not have even considered secondary school without this policy. However, the overwhelming numbers of students taking part in USE place pressure on the teachers, facilities, and funds. The quality of secondary education has begun to suffer, whereas Uganda’s goal is to improve the quality of its education system.
Challenges that teachers face include overcrowded schools and classrooms, poor salaries, communication and language barriers, lack of teaching and learning materials, too few classrooms and labs, indiscipline in students, economic poverty of their students, poor time management, lack of capacity building, and difficulty taking medical leaves. USE policy contributes to the aforementioned challenges and sparks challenges because it is a top-down policy, it is inadequately funded, was poorly planned, bases education on lectures and exams, includes policies of automatic promotion and double-shift, and creates a lack of ownership of education because tuition is free. Education in Uganda, particularly secondary education should be a right according to most but is a privilege in practice because of limited economic resources. The following are recommendations to improve the quality of education: increase overall funding, drastically reduce class sizes, rethink the “universal” goal which is unrealistic with current budget, subsidize education instead of fully funding tuition, involve all stakeholders in decisions and policy, decentralize secondary education, and introduce more critical thinking into the curriculum.