Three weeks ago, the 2025/2026 presidential campaigns started in earnest. Of the eight presidential candidates, four have unveiled their manifestos, with a view to responding to some of the challenges that the state faces now. We looked at the manifestos of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party, as well as the Opposition National Unity Platform (NUP), Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), and Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) parties.
However, experts are united that none of these manifestos speaks to the education needs of a country where one in every four Ugandan children are still out of school, teacher to pupil ratio is 55:1 in primary schools and 1:100 in some schools, compared to the global standard of 40:1. A large majority of schools also face inadequate infrastructure and learning materials and the contentious salary equity question that has triggered numerous teachers’ strikes.
NRM Presidential Manifesto
In his 2026 -2030 manifesto, the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) presidential candidate, Yoweri Museveni, is pledging to continue offering free education to Ugandans under Universal Primary Education (UPE) and Universal Secondary Education (USE) and Universal Post O-Level Education and Training; recruit more teachers in both primary and secondary schools; stop the charging of PTA fees to cater for teachers who are not on the payroll.
He also intends to rehabilitate existing primary schools, construct new secondary schools in sub-counties, and equip existing secondary schools that have been identified to be below the Basic Requirements and Minimum Standards (BRMS).
He also plans to rehabilitate all 121 traditional secondary schools and special needs schools across the country; strictly enforce teachers’ and learners’ inspection across the country using the electronic systems, as well as enhancing the roll-out of the Education Management Information System (EMIS) to serve as an electronic register of all learners in the country.
Mr Museveni has also committed to providing instructional materials to improve the textbook-to-student ratio, construct staff houses for teachers, progressively enhance salaries of arts teachers, invest more in Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET), increase the number of government-sponsored students, and rehabilitate and expand infrastructure in public universities.
FDC Manifesto
The Presidential flagbearer for the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), Mr James Nathan Nandala Mafabi, tackles the education sector by looking at the over 4,001,528 young people aged between 15-24 years, who are not in employment, or in school. He says supporting these learners will be a game-changer in the education sector, including promoting an education system that is aligned with employment. One of the key issues on top of his agenda is to enhance the salary of arts teachers to be on the same footing as their science counterparts.
However, he insists science teachers will earn extra for additional work such as conducting practicals, a matter that has already split teachers along subject lines. To improve the image of teachers at the regional level, FDC hopes to enhance teachers’ salaries to a near equivalent of their Kenyan counterparts.
The party is also committing to allocating resources to the national budget for implementing a national school feeding policy to increase concentration, improve academic performance, and reduce absenteeism among learners. Currently, only 30 percent of schools in Uganda provide at least one meal a day to learners.
The FDC also wants to increase the capitation grant for Universal Primary Education from the current Shs20,000 to Shs200,000 per pupil annually. If elected, the party will also see the capitation grant for Universal Secondary Education raised from the current Shs58,300 for O-Level learners and Shs90,000 for A-Level to Shs400,000 per student annually.
The opposition party pledges to establish a sports development fund for sports infrastructure, talent, and grassroots sports programmes to support sportsmen and women, who compete internationally, construct 10 new 20,000 capacity stadiums in sub-regions where they do not exist, and upgrade current facilities, including at least one football pitch per parish.
National Unity Platform Manifesto
The National Unity Platform (NUP) candidate, Mr Robert Kyagulanyi, says the party commits to reviewing and reforming Early Childhood Development (ECD) policies and ensuring free kindergarten schooling for all learners, at every village in the country. By extension, ECD teachers would be installed on the national payroll. All learners in both primary and secondary schools would be entitled to free meals and scholastic materials. If elected, the NUP government would look to implement a skills-focused curriculum while reducing reliance on written exams.
Kyagulanyi is also pledging to recruit more teachers and remunerate them better, in a bid to achieve a teacher-pupil ratio of 1:40, in addition to constructing more classrooms. The NUP government will also invest more resources in special needs education and embed market-oriented technical and vocational skills in secondary education to prepare learners for real jobs.
In addition, the NUP is looking to increase access to digital tools in public institutions, review university curricula to align them with market needs, and develop public policy.
Alliance for National Transformation Manifesto
The (ANT) presidential flagbearer, Maj Gen (rtd) Mugisha Muntu, is promising to engage local communities to support the learners and prepare them to utilise the acquired knowledge and skills.
‘We take note of the growing and efficient use of ICTs in the education sector, which needs to inform the future, given the growing population,’ he says.
‘Millions of children below the age of five cannot have a heavy reliance on the traditional brick and mortar approaches to provide efficient and effective education services.’ The ANT says they plan to increase the existing number of classrooms, improve teacher remuneration and in-service training, and recruitment and deployment of teachers in hard-to-reach areas.
To restore the dignity of the teaching profession, the party pledges equal and enhanced pay and a better working environment for all. In a bid to address a major source of concern, ANT says they plans to support the diversification of their income through the adoption of the right enterprises. ‘We shall immediately pay the arts teachers the same salary as science teachers,’ Gen Muntu promises.
The party will review and increase the number of scholarships by harmonising the various centres of financing high-level education, including loan schemes, and increasing the number of university scholarships to 10,000, from the less than 6,000 currently available. Without giving away any details, the party says it will work harder to improve the transition from primary school to university, in a bid to eliminate dropouts.
What sector experts say
The Uganda National Teachers Union (Unatu) General Secretary, Mr Filbert Baguma, says all these manifestos do not sufficiently respond to the concerns of the education sector, especially on increasing remuneration for teachers, funding infrastructure needs, and major challenges that the ministry is grappling with.
”I scanned through the manifestos and I have seen that all of them are not addressing the issue of funding, although there are some who have suggested some solutions to the current challenges,’ Mr Baguma analysed.
‘I looked at the one for NRM, and ANT, they have some areas to address, although not all, and the one for FDC is basically talking about sports and the current developments and the one for NUP is briefly talking about sports. To a larger extent, there is no party that is emphasising addressing the funding gap, which is the major challenge faced by the sector,’ Mr Baguma analysed.
Mr Baguma explained that although Uganda committed itself to implement the 2000 Dakar Framework for education for all, requiring the country to fund the education sector up to 20 percent of the national budget, only 4 to 6 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is being in place.
‘Uganda is currently operating at less than eight percent of the national budget instead of 20 percent. That’s around 2.3 percent of the GDP. So, there is no political party that is committed to increasing education funding, because [as long as you mention all these issues], and they don’t talk about the funding, then most likely their pledges will remain on paper,’ Mr Baguma said.
In the same vein, Mr Gerald Mijasi, the head teacher of Nakasero Primary School, appreciates the issues highlighted by the presidential candidates in their manifestos, but his worry is the commitment by the aspirants to implement them once they are elected into office is wanting.
”They are talking about improving teachers’ welfare, infrastructure, and so many other things. I cannot say that so and so has the best manifesto because the problem with politicians is that they don’t fulfill most of their pledges. Once someone is sworn in, they implement a different agenda,’ Mr Mijasi said.
‘The manifestos are just there as documentation, but implementation cannot even be at 40 percent.’ He said if Uganda were implementing the presidential manifestos that we have had over the years, the country’s education system would be one of the best in Africa.
Mr Richard Eliebu, a former Kaberamaido District education officer, says the best manifestos are those that address the teachers’ welfare, improving educational infrastructure, and sensitising parents to participate fully, rather than emphasising that the government has taken over fees and that the parents’ work is to send their children to school.
‘We have never achieved a classroom-pupils ratio of 1:53. When you visit quite a number of schools in the country, you find that to classroom-to-pupil ratio is 1:80 or 1:150. Teachers’ welfare is also important. The recent industrial action has affected us so much,’ Eliebu said.
He also says that a good manifesto should be able to reduce the cost of higher education, promote the use of ICT in rural schools, and offer free education to a specific number of every teacher’s children throughout the education cycle.
‘Those days, a child from a rural area would go to a first-world secondary school and then go to university on merit. These days it is very difficult for a child from the village who goes to a poor Universal Primary Education (UPE) school and Universal Secondary Education (USE) to go to university on merit. Some end up dropping out. If they complete A-Level, they may not proceed to university due to high tuition, given the fact that the majority of the learners go to university on private sponsorship,” Eliebu says.
James Okello, a parent in one of the public schools, says he likes President Museveni’s manifesto, given that it calls for increased recruitment of teachers and improving their welfare. ‘Head teachers have always been warned against charging children any money yet there are teachers who are not on the government payroll and are paid by parents,’ he says. Mr Okello adds: ‘If the staffing gap is filled by the government, then parents will be relieved of the burden of paying teachers’ salaries [as is the case in some grant-aided institutions].’