Rising tuition fees in Catholic schools push African families to the brink

Costly walk: Students astatine Uganda Martyrs’ Secondary School astatine Namugongo, successful Kampala. | Photo Credit: AP

A crying genitor with an unpaid tuition equilibrium walked into the unit country of a Catholic backstage schoolhouse and begged the teachers to assistance enrol her son.

The school’s argumentation required the pistillate wage astatine slightest 60% of her son’s afloat tuition measure earlier helium could articulation the pupil body. She didn’t person the wealth and was led away. “She was pleading, ‘Please assistance me,’” said Beatrice Akite, a teacher astatine St. Kizito Secondary School successful Uganda’s superior city, who witnessed the outburst.

Two weeks into 2nd term, Ms. Akite recounted the woman’s hopeless infinitesimal to item however distressed parents are being crushed by unpredictable fees they can’t pay, forcing their children to driblet retired of school. It’s leaving galore successful sub-Saharan Africa — which has the world’s highest dropout rates — to criticise the mission-driven Catholic Church for not doing capable to easiness the fiscal unit families face.

The Catholic Church is the region’s largest nongovernmental capitalist successful education. Catholic schools person agelong been a pillar of affordable but high-quality education, particularly for mediocre families.

Towards privatisation

Their entreaty remains beardown adjacent with contention from different nongovernmental investors present eyeing schools arsenic enterprises for profit. The increasing inclination toward privatisation is sparking interest that the Catholic Church whitethorn terms retired the radical who request uplifting.

Ms. Akite hopes Catholic leaders enactment measures that would streamline fees crossed schools of comparable quality.

Kampala’s St. Kizito Secondary School, wherever Ms. Akite teaches literature, was founded by priests of the Comboni missionary order, known for its dedication to serving mediocre communities. Its students travel mostly from working-class families and tuition per word is astir $300, a important sum successful a state wherever GDP per capita was astir $1,000 successful 2023. Yet that tuition is little than astatine galore different Catholic-run schools successful Kampala, Ms. Akite said.

One of the astir costly backstage schools successful Kampala, the Catholic-run Uganda Martyrs’ Secondary School Namugongo, maintains a argumentation of “zero balance” erstwhile a kid reports to schoolhouse astatine the opening of a three-month term. This means students indispensable beryllium afloat paid by the clip they study to school.

Tuition astatine the schoolhouse was erstwhile arsenic precocious arsenic $800 but has since dropped to astir $600 arsenic enrolment swelled to astir 5,000, said lawman headmaster James Batte.

On a caller morning, determination was a queue of parents waiting extracurricular Batte’s bureau to petition much clip to wide tuition balances.

Luxury setup

Daniel Birungi, an electrical technologist successful Kampala whose lad enroled this twelvemonth astatine St. Mary’s College Kisubi successful Uganda, said the emerging hazard for accepted Catholic schools is to cater lone to the rich.

There is blistery h2o successful the bathrooms, helium said, describing what helium felt was a inclination toward levels of luxury helium ne'er imagined arsenic a pupil determination successful the 1990s. Now, students are prohibited from packing snacks and alternatively encouraged to bargain what they request from school-owned canteens, helium said.

The World Bank reported successful 2023 that 54% of adults successful sub-Saharan Africa fertile the contented of paying schoolhouse fees higher than aesculapian bills and different expenses.

Published - June 09, 2025 09:09 americium IST