In 2007, Government of Uganda implemented the Universal Secondary Education (USE) program. This program enables children from poor backgrounds to access secondary education, after completing primary under the Universal Primary Education (UPE). Both government and low cost private schools implement the USE program under Public Private Partnership arrangement (PPPs). These schools receive capitation grants of UGX 47,000 per student per term from government for teaching and learning purposes.
In 2016, the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER) published a research report on the PPP policy in Uganda’s education sector. This research revealed the right to education is not yet realized. The lack of financial accountability by schools is one of many gaps in this regard. Since most of the PPP schools are for profit and receive government funding, strong compliance to financial accountability guidelines is needed.
ISER and TRAC FM are running an advocacy campaign that is part of the Common Matters program. We will collect citizens’ voices on financial accountability of PPPs in Uganda through interactive radio polling on 9 radio stations. Over the course of 2 months, we will broadcast 3 poll questions on these stations. Thereafter, there will be radio talk shows on each of the radio stations to discuss the results for each poll question. The campaign has already started today as it kicked off earlier this week on Monday, 8th of May 2017.
The poll questions will be aired on the following radio stations: Mega FM in Gulu, Radio Wa in Lira, Kiira FM in Jinja, Hunter FM in Bushenyi, Radio Simba in Kampala, Radio Pacis in Arua, Hits FM in Fort Portal, Delta FM in Soroti, and Nenah FM in Moroto.
To view the progress of these poll questions, visit http://tracfm.org/s/campaign/129/common-matters/
