CONFRONTING THE SCHOOL DROPOUT DILEMMA IN UGANDA

We who were present in the distant past of Uganda remember that we lived in a very integrated past of man-nature relations. All of us living in the present know that we are mired in a very disintegrated present in which our leaders are more concerned with power, glory, wealth and domination of humanity through wars and denials of what makes life livable and watching over the sprouting of numerous dilemmas.  There is no doubt that if humanity is going to survive in a wholesome environment, we who are living today need to work for a more integrated future for our children and children’s children. Unfortunately, we continue to proceed as if nothing is wrong, generating or establishing many facets and strategies of disintegrating everything conceivable. The result are many dilemmas for which we have no credible responses and which many never be effectively addressed.

Dilemmas tend to emerge as problems. They remain so and become worse and complex if they are ignored or receive unserious solutions. Since all problems begin with Man, Homo sapiens, as the cause they end with Man Homo sapeiens as the victim. However, as I have repeatedly said in the past, behind every problem is the problem of leadership. If the leadership in place lacks knowledge, wisdom, understanding and insight but continually   pretends to have them, and gives the impression that no other alternative system can address those problems, then it cannot extricate itself from the problems. You cannot be part of the problems and then cast yourself as the one with the solutions. It is deception.

Bayo Baker (2017) wrote a good article on the dilemma of past, present and future. Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2023) followed this with a Uganda-specific article titled “Uganda and the Dilemma of the Past, Present and Future”. Unfortunately, the article was not published. In the article I listed a number of dilemmas Uganda faced, is facing and will face in future. Among the dilemmas I included the refugee dilemma, the leadership dilemma, the Banyarwanda dilemma, the Lake Victoria dilemma, the governance dilemma, the pure science dilemma, the ethnicity dilemma, the futures dilemma, the dilemma of brain drain, the dilemma of slavery, the dilemma of climate change, the dilemma of Banyamulenge, the dilemma of money bonanzas, the dilemma of constitutionalism, the dilemma of social media, the dilemma of corruption, et cetera. Apparently, I did not include the dilemma of school dropouts! Student dropout rates continue to soar, despite decades of funding, research, programs, and professional development initiatives. This is a wakeup call (Bowman, 2024). This is also true regarding primary school dropout rates. There is need to rethink how we are managing education and begin to address the real dropout issues with young people and incorporate fresh approaches to better reach and positively impact these pupils and students and their caregivers – before it is too late (e.g., Bowman, 2024).

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that every child has the right to an education that develops their “personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential. (American psychological Association (2012). It is a gross violation of children’s right to education and development if a reigning government allows and presides over a sociocultural, socioeconomic and sociopolitical environment in which school dropout rates continue to shoot up supersonically. The nation’s children are its future workers, citizens, and leaders.

Education remains the major tool by which people become empowered and the economic, social, and personal well-being of all citizens in a pluralistic society increases. A high dropout rate diminishes the pool of qualified people from diverse backgrounds who will enter the professional and political ranks that make important public policy decisions (APA, 1996). The mission for every school -private or public – should be to educate students [and pupils] to equip them to become “knowledgeable, responsible, socially skilled, healthy, caring, and contributing citizens” (Greenberg et al., 2003 cited by APA, 2012).

In this article “Uganda – Confronting the School Dropout Dilemma” I want to initiate a serious nationwide debate on school dropout because the school dropout rate has the potential to halt the development, transformation and progress of Uganda in this century of World Wide Web and Artificial Intelligence and beyond. A country with a rising tide of school dropouts will continually be left behind by other nations in the capacity to take advantage of the fast and dynamic developments in knowledge production, information and communications.

In Uganda the school dropout phenomenon may occur at any level of education; even primary one!  School dropout rates in the country are high, especially among girls. The dropout rate for primary school is around 45%, and for secondary school it is around 30%.  The government newspaper of 26 April, 2023 reported that in 2016 over 1.8 million entered primary one, according to the 2016 education statistical abstract. However, over one million of these children dropped out before completing primary education. It is as if Uganda’s education system was designed to ensure that as many children as possible are rejected at the lowest and mid-levels of the educational ladder in the 21st Century and beyond. The tide of school dropouts in Uganda, instead of falling meteorically with the introduction of free Universal Primary Education (UPE) in 1997 and free Universal Secondary Education (USE) later on, is rising supersonically. There is an increasingly credible school of thought arguing the UPE  and USE were introduced not so much to educate the largest number our children as to produce cheap labour out of them. The Independent of July 22 2024 argued that the high primary school dropout endangers future workforce. The Uganda school dropout phenomenon is a dilemma that must be squarely confronted before it is too late. Later will be too late.

Confronting the high school dropout dilemma will require leadership commitment and investment in high quality early childhood education, attention to social and emotional learning, continual monitoring of student attendance and academic progress, intensive instruction for those falling behind, using alternatives to school push-out and socioeconomic development programmes that empower communities rather than select individuals with the falsehood that prosperity will trickle down to all members of society (e.g., APA, 2012).

Most school dropouts in Uganda are finding themselves recruited in the prisons, police and army where President Tibuhaburwa Museveni says he has a lot of jobs. Others have found themselves trapped modern domestic slavery or external slavery, especially in the Middle East, where they are taken by labour firms belonging to people in power or connected to power. Those trading in humans as slaves or owning enterprises where school dropouts are employed as domestic slaves tend to belong to one ethnic group linked to the bush war in the Luwero Triangle of Uganda.

Apparently, the majority of school dropouts tend to belong to ethnic groups largely excluded from power. Many other school dropouts find themselves working in sugarcane, oil palm and tea plantations while others are exploited by firms to people in power or connected to power, Indians and Chinese engaged in illegal mining of Uganda’s mineral wealth and smuggling it out for personal gain. A report by the Auditor-General revealed that gold worth 11 trillion shillings was exported out of Uganda but the exports were never reflected in the Uganda National budget 2024/25.

The Uganda Government must not continue to bury its head in the sand like an ostrich. It must confront the outrageous leakage of children from its education. It must deconstruct the education system so that it serves developmental rather than political ends. There is need to realign the national budget away from war, politics and extravagance on the presidency, State House and politicians.  Concurrently it should stop pretending that it is combating poverty through giving money bonanzas to a few individuals in a community while leaving the majority to wallow in poverty. If the fight against poverty is made to assume a community approach away from the current individualistic approach, money will flow in the pockets of most parents. The parents, as in the past when the cooperative movement played a critical role in financially empowering the population, will be so empowered to keep children in schools. Without this, the country’s education system remains anti-education, anti-children. It will never come anywhere near meeting the demand of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child that every child has the right to an education that develops their “personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential. Otherwise, Uganda will ever be behind in development, transformation and progress. These essentials will continue to be on the lips of leaders and rulers rather than actualised in the short- medium and long-term. Development, transformation and progress should be most pronounced in the population segment of children; not things.

For God and My Country

Further Reading

Alliance for Excellent Education (2011). The high cost of high school dropouts: What the nation pays for inadequate high schools . (PDF, 640KB)

American Psychological Association (2012). Facing the School Dropout Dilemma. APA, 2012 https://www.apa.org/pi/families/resources/school-dropout-prevention#:~:text=Facing%20the%20high%20school%20dropout,alternatives%20to%20school%20push%2Dout%2C Visited on 5 February 2025 at 18:56 pm EAT

Balfanz, R., & Legters, N. (2006). Closing ‘dropout factories’: The graduation-rate crisis we know, and what can be done about it. Education Week, 25(42), 42-43.

Bowman, Susan (2024). Confronting the School Dropout Crisis: Insights and Interventions from a Former Dropout. Corwin, November 12, 2024 https://www.corwin.com/books/school-dropout-crisis-289829 Visited on 5  February 2025 at 19:30 pm.

Doll, J. J., Eslami, Z., & Walters, L. (2013). Understanding why students drop out of high school, according to their own reports: Are they pushed or pulled, or do they fall out? A comparative analysis of seven nationally representative studies. SAGE Open. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244013503834

Etukuri, Charles and Pascal Kwesiga (2023). One Million Children drop out of school before PLE. New Vision, 26 April 26 2023. https://www.newvision.co.ug/category/education/one-million-children-drop-out-before-ple-NV_159011 Visited on 5 February 2023 at 10:46 am EAT.

Gleason, P. & Dynarski, M. (2002). Do we know whom to serve? Issues in using risk factors to identify dropouts. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 7, 25–41.

Greenberg, M., Weissberg, R., O’Brien, M., Zins, J., Fredericks, L., Resnik, H., & Elias, M. (2003). Enhancing school-based prevention and youth development through coordinated social, emotional, and academic learning. American Psychologist, 58(6/7), 466-474

Nambogga, Jackie (2024). Alupo decries high school dropout rates. New Vision 5 February, 2024. https://www.newvision.co.ug/category/news/alupo-decries-high-school-dropout-rates-NV_200660 Visited on 5 February 025 at 11:01 am EAT

Ressa, Theodoto and Allyson Andrews (2022). High School Dropout Dilemma in America and the Importance of Reformation of Education Systems to Empower All Students. International Journal of Modern Education Studies. Vol 6 (2) December 2022: 423-447.

Romero, Jessie (2014). The Dropout Dilemma. Econ Focus, Third Quarter 2014, https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/econ_focus/2014/q3/feature1 Visited on5 February 2025 at 19:42 pm EAT.

Rumberger, Russell. Dropping Out: Why Students Drop Out of High School and What Can Be Done About It. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011.

The Independent (2024). High Primary School dropout rate endangers future workforce. The Independent, July 22 2024. https://www.newvision.co.ug/category/education/one-million-children-drop-out-before-ple-NV_159011 Visited on 5 February 2025 at 10:58 am EAT.