The Right to Education in Uganda

In Do you know your rights? it was seen that Uganda is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities (CRPD). Article 24 of the CRPD, in summary, says that persons with disabilities (PWDs) have the right to education and that they should be able to access education. The blog post Education and Disability in Uganda shows that Uganda gives substantial backing to the CRPD in its laws.

Uganda has adopted a human rights approach to solving the problems of PWDs. In other words through legislation the government has sought to include PWDs. However, granting rights by law does not mean that PWDs are any closer to social inclusion. The approach has been criticized because there are several shortcomings, these are highlighted in Human Rights Based Approach to Disability in Development in Uganda: A Way to Fill the Gap between Political and Social Spaces?. 

Uganda has applied the human rights based approach to some extent in practice, especially in terms of the civil and political rights of PWDs. The rights of PWDs are specifically stipulated in the Constitution of 1995 as follows: ‘‘Persons with disabilities have a right to respect and human dignity and the State and society shall take appropriate measures to ensure that they realize their full mental and physical potential’’. Concrete positive changes have taken place in creating political space for disabled representatives.
...political space does not secure the mainstreaming of PWDs in other spaces, including the social one. This fact implies that gaps exist between disabled leaders and general PWDs, or more precisely, that there is diversity among so-called ‘‘PWDs’’. Political representation has secured the group rights to participate, while individual rights require a more elaborate and sensitive approach to accommodate this diversity. In short, the study reveals difficulties in the operationalisation of the human rights based approach to disability in development in spite of all its theoretical significance.

Granting places by law to PWDs and according them rights does not automatically bring about social inclusion. Inclusion in education is much more than granting human rights. The 2013 report ACCESS TO EDUCATION BY PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES IN UGANDA’S EDUCATION SYSTEM sums up the situation in the following points:

• Inclusive education requires continued financial commitment which the Ugandan government has so far failed to do. Furthermore, there is a general lack of facilities and resources for children with disabilities in schools and colleges, and even universities. Thus, even though legal reforms have been made, little has been implemented which means that many school age children with disabilities continue to be denied the right to education. 
• Credit should go to the Ugandan government for expanding literacy for girls and boys, and promoting inclusive education through educational policies and initiatives. However, the lack of adequate enforcement has reduced their effectiveness. Given the high ratio of students per classroom, new infrastructure and structural reforms need to be made to improve learning in public schools. This ratio coupled with poor pay for teachers is beginning to create a gap in the standards between private and public schools since the best teachers are being driven out of public schools into private ones. Thus the government must aim to build more schools, increase teachers’ pay and improve infrastructure in schools.
• The evidence has shown that the Ugandan government has breathed new life into the rights of persons with disabilities since adopting the CRPD but the lack of resources, weak legal enforcement, unsecure financial commitments and inadequate facilities, have overshadowed these developments.
• The government should be credited for putting in place policies to combat the scourge of disability discrimination in education, something the previous regimes failed to achieve. However, these developments were the result of pressure from the international community and a need to meet EFA (Education For All) targets. For example, working alongside the Ministry of Education and Sports, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded initiative known as UNITY has been influential in supporting and promoting education for persons with disabilities in Uganda. The group is striving to improve advocacy and availability of adequate resources for students with disabilities in schools. 
• For those with mental health disabilities, the challenges of yesteryears remain undiminished and little has been done to recognize their right to education. 

USDC advocates for inclusive education – this teacher is blind as well as his student. Education that surely empowers both.

In April 2016 (see Report on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities) problems with implementing the CRPD in Uganda were addressed in the Concluding observations on the initial report of Uganda. The committee detailed its concerns:

(a) The promotion of segregated educational institutions in the State party over an inclusive education system;
(b) The lack of adequately trained teachers to promote inclusive education at all levels of the education system;
(c) The inability of schools to meet the accessibility requirements of children with disabilities and the non-admission of children with severe disabilities;
(d) The absence of statistical data on learners with disabilities disaggregated by age, gender and disability type.

Several recommendations were made to be put into place to rectify this problem by 2021. These are as follows:

(a) Expedite taking action, establish a time frame for the transition process from segregated to inclusive education and ensure that budgetary, technical and professional resources are available to complete the process and collect disaggregated data on the advancement of the inclusive education system;
(b) Ensure the accessibility to school facilities for all students with disabilities, including deaf-blind children, provide materials and curricula adequate to their requirements and generally take measures to prevent non-admission of children with disabilities in the education system;
(c) Take measures including by encouraging public/private partnerships to ensure the provision of individualized accessible information and communications technology and assistive technologies in education;
(d) Undertake a comprehensive review of the teacher training curriculum at all levels of education and provide mandatory training on inclusive education in core curricula of teachers both pre- and in-service to provide for disability awareness, inclusive education pedagogy, sign language, Braille, easy-to-read material and tactile communication training for all professionals;
(e) Develop a database on learners with disabilities to identify and provide specific learning aids;
(f) Pay attention to the links between article 24 of the Convention and targets 4.5 and 4 (a) of the Sustainable Development Goals.

This 2016 article ‘Cabinet’s failure to approve inclusive education policy costing the nation’ discusses the shortcomings of Uganda's education laws:

KAMPALA- Lack of a national policy on inclusive education has kept many children with disabilities out of school, Eng. Patrick Mutenga, the chairperson of the Committee on management of Uganda Society for Disabled Children [USDC] has said.
Inclusive education means that all learners irrespective of disability attend schools in age-appropriate, have regular classes and are supported to learn, contribute and participate in all aspects of the life of the school.
Uganda’s policy on inclusive Education which was tabled before cabinet in 2011 is yet to be approved.
Termed as policy on special needs and inclusive Education and non-formal education policy, it was meant to address challenges faced in implementing inclusive education.
Mr Mutenga said the policy was formulated and tabled before cabinet in 2011 but keeps shifting within the cabinet shelves and trolleys.
“This policy would have developed a common understanding of inclusive education and how Uganda as a country can implement the approach to benefit children with disabilities, but we are now stuck,” said Mr Mutenga.
He said Uganda has many schools but only 150 schools are implementing inclusive education and that this is equivalent to schools in only one district.
Dr Eric Paul Njuki from the Faculty of Special Needs and Rehabilitation at Kyambogo University urged government to make inclusive education training compulsory in all teacher training institutions.
Dr Njuki emphasized the need for an increased enrollment, participation and completion of schooling by persons with special learning needs, strengthening and systematizing existing initiatives/programs.
The Minister of State for Primary education Ms Rosemary Sseninde said the long stay of the policy at cabinet has effected implementation of the programme.
“Five years is too long for a policy to stay at cabinet level, I am going to follow it up and ensure it is brought for approval before the cabinet,” said Mrs Seninde.
According to the Situation Analysis of Children in Uganda Report 2015 by UNICEF, Uganda has about 2.5 million children with some form of disability and of these; only 5% are able to access education within an inclusive setting in regular schools while only 10% access education through special schools and annexes.
The report adds that many schools supposed to provide inclusive education are poorly equipped to assess or meet the various needs of children with disabilities and that as a result; several children with disabilities are not attending formal education in these schools and the few that join and end up dropping out before completing the primary cycle.

Uganda has more than 20 years of history of granting Human Rights to disabled people through its laws. It is often said that Uganda has disability rights laws for PWDs that are second to none in Africa. Despite this, inclusive education in Uganda faces many challenges. For instance:

• Extra finance is required to provide training for teachers working with special needs pupils. 
• Extra teachers need to be trained to provide inclusive education to children with special needs. 
• Schools need to be accessible to PWDs to be inclusive.
• Suitable equipment for PWDs needs to be provided, like Braille books or sign language for hearing impaired.

Providing for Human Rights does not automatically mean that equality and social inclusion are granted. There is still a long way to go and a lot of work to be done.