3. School discipline

(a) Corporal punishment

83. Joe Oloka-Onyango noted that corporal punishment is brought to light only when a child is severely injured, pointing out "the absence of a monitoring system to ensure that such abuse of power by teachers does not take place" ⁴⁴. Besides this absence of monitoring, teachers form part of the public service and there are no grounds for their dismissal for abuse of power over their pupils. Perhaps the transfer of authority for teachers' recruitment from the central to district authorities will increase the involvement of the community, although this may not prevent corporal punishment because many parents remain supportive of it. Corporal punishment is widely used and Catherine Watson cited research done at the Mulago Child Health Development Centre which showed that mothers were the principal enforcers of corporal punishment and between 55 per cent and 82 per cent of them reported caning, slapping or beating their children ⁴⁵. Corporal punishment was legalized by the Education Act, which attempted to confine the administration of corporal punishment to head teachers, but it is acknowledged that "teachers do cane children in all the schools"⁴⁶. The Ministry of Education issued a circular instructing teachers not to resort to corporal punishment, while individual cases started prompting the law enforcement agencies and the Uganda Human Rights Commission to react. Cases resulting in severe injury have been prosecuted and have often resulted in the payment of the cost of medical treatment for the child and compensation to the parents.

84. The Special Rapporteur is concerned about the effects of exposure of Ugandan children to violence, whether it is manifested in corporal punishment in the family and in school, or in abuse of children in armed conflicts. The missionary tradition of schooling which combines obedience and strict enforcement of school discipline socializes children into following orders and physical punishment for disobeying them, whether such orders are understood or not. The Special Rapporteur heard a great deal of opposition to changing methods of enforcing school discipline and noted the paucity of counter-arguments which would associate early exposure of children to obedience and violence with their adult behaviour. She very much hopes for an initiative to rupture inter-generational transmission of such a "culture of violence".

(b) Pregnant schoolgirls

85. While corporal punishment has elicited some public attention, pregnant schoolgirls still have to leave school and are unable to register at the same school after delivery. No information is available on this issue nor is it on the educational, gender or human rights agenda. The Special Rapporteur was given the well-known explanation about the background to this practice, going back to the heritage of missionary schools. Justifications for this practice included assertions that any form of tolerance of child pregnancy would be seen as encouragement. No association is made with the best interests of the (pregnant) child nor is there an acknowledgment of the fact that girls have not been equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to prevent pregnancy and are thus doubly victimized. The Special Rapporteur is concerned about the lack of attention to this issue, especially in view of Uganda's initiative to speed up the entry into force of the Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the African Child, which contains an explicit provision obliging Governments to enable child mothers to continue their education.

86. The introduction of family life education in school was prompted by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, but access to contraceptives did not follow (contraceptive use is still estimated at below 10 per cent), nor did a family planning programme that would inform and empower girls and women to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancy or HIV infection. Uganda's success in halting the spread of HIV infection (HIV infection rates have been falling since 1995) has been much praised and rightly so. This success was based on a widespread information and education campaign, which necessarily included some sexuality-related content.

87. The Special Rapporteur is fully aware of the difficulties involved in reconciling freedom of religion with the best interests of the child, when these require providing the child with means of self-protection against HIV infection or pregnancy. She is not arguing that this is easy, but rather that it is both possible and necessary. Similarly, the removal of pregnant girls from school reinforces the image of these girls as unworthy of further schooling and also removes them from the public eye, making it easy to avoid tackling the causes of child pregnancy.

D. Adaptability: orientation and purpose of education      [ Go to Contents ]

88. Basic education was defined in the 1992 white paper as the "provision of opportunities for acquiring the minimum package of knowledge, skills and attitudes that will enable one to realize one's potential and to contribute constructively to local and national development". A Curriculum Review Task Force was appointed in 1992 to formulate a syllabus that would reflect the contemporary national and educational objectives. The Task Force recommended science and basic technology as cardinal areas of study and an emphasis on vocational skills, as well as development of an understanding of one's rights, civic responsibilities and duties, including those related to responsible parenthood⁴⁷. Revision of the syllabus continued, with the intention of introducing new subjects, such as Agriculture or Business and Entrepreneurship Education so as to vocationalize primary schooling and make it useful for learners - a vast majority - who will have no subsequent schooling. A proposal was made that the number of subjects be increased to 11. It was unlikely to be accepted because of the increased demands it would place upon teachers and the prohibitive cost entailed in purchasing textbooks.

89. A comprehensive strategy for education is expected to be drawn up following the current focus on UPE. This is necessary before the first UPE generation leaves primary school in 2003 and it becomes obvious that 13-year-old children may not be equipped to earn their livelihood, even if they were legally allowed to start working at this early age. However, they may not be able to continue their education owing to the shortage or excessive cost of secondary education. The planned vocationalization of primary education thus needs broadening as a follow-up to primary schooling. The Special Rapporteur was discouraged by information about the lack of domestic resources or donor interest in vocational education and training.

V. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS      [ Go to Contents ]

90. The conceptual bridge to link education, gender and human rights is yet to be built. A great deal has been achieved for gender, much less to define and operationalize the right to education and human rights in education. The Special Rapporteur is concerned about the widespread perception of universal primary education as a gift and the absence of legislative underpinning that would specify rights and duties, freedoms and obligations in education. She recommends that the immense improvement in access to school resulting from UPE be used as an opportunity to ensure sustainability of primary education through an all-encompassing public debate about a self-sustaining educational system that would lead to its legal entrenchment.

91. Making primary education universal by the year 2003 requires a coordinated effort by the international creditor and/or donor community and the Government. The Special Rapporteur was happy to learn about further possibilities for debt relief opened by the G-8 meeting in June 1999 and the broadening international support for converting funds freed by debt relief into improved availability and accessibility of schooling for Uganda's children and youth. She recommends that human rights impact assessment be institutionalized to identify international factors inhibiting or facilitating access to school and thus clarify the impact of international debt relief and structural adjustment policies. The creditors' and/or donors' support to education gives countenance to the timeliness of such an initiative.

92. Mainstreaming human rights and gender in education necessitates the recognition of all relevant human rights issues. Thus far the focus has been on availability and accessibility of primary schooling. The Special Rapporteur has been gladdened to see how much attention is being devoted to improving girls' access to school, their consistent attendance and completion. She suggests that this momentum be used as the basis for gender mainstreaming. This requires addressing difficult and controversial issues such as schoolgirl pregnancy, adaptation of the content of educational curricula and textbooks to the objective of equipping girls with the knowledge and skills necessary for them to avoid early pregnancy, and broadening the objectives and purposes of education to provide the future generations of women in Uganda with options unavailable to the past and current generations of women. The Special Rapporteur recommends that an effort be made to overcome the fragmented attention to gender, specifically in view of the importance of women's land ownership for the status of girls and women throughout rural Uganda. The interrelatedness of human rights provides a comprehensive framework for reviewing all sectoral policies so as to adjust them to human rights requirements. The mutually reinforcing gender commitments of the Government and the international donor community provide an excellent basis for embarking on this process.

93. The Special Rapporteur is concerned about the absence of attention to many important human rights issues in the sector of education. She noted that the collective voice of teachers is not heard in many professional and public debates about education, and that the trade union freedoms of primary schoolteachers remain constrained by the developments of the past decades. The increased duties and responsibilities of teachers have not been matched with recognition of their trade union freedoms. The vast growth of primary school enrolment and additional expectations upon teachers stem from the explicit recognition of the need to adapt teaching to girls as well as boys, to learners with disabilities as well as able-bodied children, and to the multilingual environment. The Special Rapporteur recommends that particular attention be paid to the full recognition of teachers' trade union freedoms and that the collective voice of teachers be solicited throughout the process of educational planning and policy-making and their translation into reality.

94. Existing international human rights law provides guidance for addressing all human rights issues in education. The Government has ratified most relevant human rights treaties with the exception of crucial ILO conventions, but its compliance with its reporting obligations leaves much to be desired. Neither the contents of human rights treaties as they apply to education, nor the reporting obligations are known to many relevant actors - either international or Ugandan - working in education.

95. The Special Rapporteur recommends that a human rights strategy be formulated on the basis of Uganda's existing international and domestic commitments and that the reporting process under the ratified human rights treaties be utilized for stocktaking. This process would make visible many issues that have thus far escaped attention, such as non-registration of children at birth, or non-recording of race, ethnicity, tribe and religion (as Uganda's Constitution requires) upon entry into the educational system, and would enable the creation of baseline data and the setting up of safeguards against discrimination, or monitoring the association between schooling and child labour.

96. The articulation of a human rights strategy would usefully complement the emerging design of a follow-up to UPE. The first UPE generation will leave primary school in the year 2003 and expectations concerning the programme will be tested at that time. They are many. UPE is expected, on the one hand, to contribute to poverty eradication and, on the other hand, to create an increased demand for secondary education, while also contributing to postponed childbearing and a smaller number of children, as well as generating a shared notion of the rights and duties of citizenship. Education is proverbially loaded with many diverse expectations as to what it should accomplish; heightened expectations tend to shift to disappointment if they are not met, which then reduces commitment to education. A human rights strategy could usefully combine many loose threads within and outside the sector of education into a comprehensive rights-based vision of Uganda's future.

2. Statement of Godfrey Binaisa, President of Uganda, at the 14th plenary meeting of the General Assembly, Official Records of the General Assembly, Thirty-fourth session, Plenary meetings, vol. I, pp. 269-270. «-- back

3.Report of the Secretary-General to the Commission on Human Rights on assistance to Uganda, 8 December 1983 (E/CN.4/1984/45), pp. 2-3 and 22. «-- back

4. A.R. Tucker, Eighteen Years in Uganda and East Africa, Arnolds, London, 1908, vol. II, p. 151. «-- back

5. Department of Education - Report by the Education Secretary of the African Inland Mission, 1925 Annual Report, Uganda Protectorate Government Printer, Entebbe, 1926, p. 16. «-- back

6. Each Government adopted a formal education strategy. The first four-year plan (1963-1966) emphasized secondary and higher education in the spirit of what was then called "manpower development", and this thrust was followed in the second five-year plan (1966-1971). The latter plan was interrupted by a change of policy in 1969, denoted as a shift to socialism. The third five-year plan (1971-1976) continued the previous emphasis on secondary education, with a change of orientation in 1975 towards indigenization and rural development. None of these plans materialized. The end of warfare in 1986 was followed by the rehabilitation programme (1988-1991), which started rebuilding educational infrastructure. «-- back

7. Ministry of Education, Evolution of Uganda's Educational System, Kampala, 1986, p. 4. «-- back

8. Education for National Integration and Development. Report of Education Policy Review Commission, Ministry of Education, Kampala, January 1989; the final version was issued in April 1991. «-- back

9. Government of Uganda, Education for National Integration and Development. Government White Paper on the Education Policy Review Commission Report, Government Printer, Kampala, April 1992. «-- back

10. The Republic of Uganda, Background to the Budget 1999/2000, Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, Kampala, June 1999, p. 89. «-- back

11. A comparison between results of the 1989/90 Household Budget Survey and the 1992/93 Integrated Household Survey revealed "a dramatic fall in household expenditure". The World Bank, Uganda: The Challenge of Growth and Poverty Reduction. A World Bank Country Study, Washington, D.C., January 1996, para. 21, p. 87. «-- back

12. "Uganda: Enhanced structural adjustment facility policy framework paper, 1998-99-2000/01", prepared by the Ugandan authorities in collaboration with the staffs of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, 28 October 1998, para. 5. «-- back

13. Republic of Uganda, "Memorandum of economic and financial policies", annex to the Letter of Intent dated 28 October 1998, addressed to the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund by the Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, para. 11. «-- back

14. The World Bank, Uganda: The Challenge of Growth and Poverty Reduction. A World Bank Country Study, Washington, D.C., January 1996, para. 4.21, p. 67. «-- back

15. "Uganda: Enhanced structural adjustment facility policy framework paper, 1998-99-2000/01", prepared by the Ugandan authorities in collaboration with the staffs of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, 28 October 1998, para. 1. «-- back

16. The World Bank Annual Report 1998, Washington, D.C., 1999, table 1: HIPC initiative: Status of country cases, p. 5. «-- back

17. Uganda ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1985, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1986, the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1995, all without reservations, as well as the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and the Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the African Child. «-- back

18. Report to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (fourteenth session), (A/50/38) 31 May 1995, paras. 286 and 335-336. «-- back

19. Committee on the Rights of the Child, Concluding observations: Uganda (CRC/C/15/Add. 80), of 21 October 1997, paras. 16 and 18. «-- back

20. Uganda Human Rights Commission, 1997 Annual Report, Kampala, July 1998, p. 49. «-- back

21. A. Kelles-Viitanen, "Employment promotion of women in Uganda: From disabling to enabling environment", ILO, 1994, p. 11, mimeographed. «-- back

22. Republic of Uganda, Education Strategic Investment Plan 1998-2003, Government of Uganda, Kampala, November 1998. «-- back

23. The Republic of Uganda, Background to the Budget 1999/2000, Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, Kampala, June 1999, p. 20. «-- back

24. E. Ablo and R. Reinikka, Do Budgets Really Matter? Evidence from Public Spending on Education and Health in Uganda, Policy Research Working Paper No. 1926, The World Bank, Washington, D.C., 1996, p. 31. «-- back

25. Republic of Uganda, Education Strategic Investment Plan 1998-2003, Government of Uganda, Kampala, November 1998, p. 14. «-- back

26. The data of the Ministry of Education placed net primary enrolment at 55 per cent in 1994/1995, 56 per cent in 1995/1996, and the preliminary estimate for 1997/1998 was 91 per cent. The rate of completion of the seven years of primary school (P1-P7) was 30 per cent in 1994/1995, 35 per cent in 1995/1996 and was estimated at 40 per cent for 1997/1998. Republic of Uganda, Memorandum of economic and financial policies annexed to the Letter of Intent dated 28 October 1998, addressed to the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund by the Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, table 1: Social outcome indicators, 1994/1995-2004/2005, p. 13. «-- back

27. UNESCO Statistical Yearbook 1998, UNESCO, Paris, 1999, table 3.97. «-- back

28. "The development of education in Uganda 1990-1992", a report to the 43rd session of the International Conference on Education, Uganda National Commission for UNESCO, 1992. «-- back

29. Committee on the Rights of the Child, Initial report of Uganda (CRC/C/3/Add. 40), 17 June 1996, para. 54. «-- back

30. The preliminary results of the school census (called "headcount") of 11 May 1999 placed primary school enrolment at 6.2 million (out of which 5.8 million under UPE), while the secondary enrolment of 462,300 includes both public and private schools. For Kampala, for example, UPE covered 74 per cent of learners, while at the secondary level the majority were in private schools. «-- back

31. C. Watson Children First. Talking with Your Community about Child Welfare and Development, The Republic of Uganda & UNICEF, Kampala, December 1996, p. 13. «-- back

32. UNICEF, The State of the World's Children 1999, UNICEF, New York, 1999, p. 109. «-- back

33. J.B. Mugaju, ed., An Analytical Review of Uganda's Decade of Reforms 1986-1996, Fountain Publishers, Kampala, 1996, p. 72. «-- back

34. "The development of education in Uganda 1990-1992", a report to the 43rd session of the International Conference on Education, Uganda National Commission for UNESCO, 1992. «-- back

35. Committee on the Rights of the Child, Initial report of Uganda (CRC/C/3/Add.40), 17 June 1996, para. 174. «-- back

36. Commission on Human Rights, Report of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (E/CN.4/1999/62), 28 December 1998, para. 307. «-- back

37. Commission on Human Rights, Abduction of children from northern Uganda. Report of the Secretary-General (E/CN.4/1999/69), 27 January 1999, para. 36. «-- back

38. The Republic of Uganda/UNICEF, Northern Uganda Psycho-Social Needs Assessment Report (NUPSNA), Kampala, November 1998, p. 111. «-- back

39. Committee on the Rights of the Child, Initial report of Uganda (CRC/C/3/Add.40), 17 June 1996, para. 256. «-- back

40. "The girl child in Rwanda: a situation analysis (Desk review)", Directorate of Gender, Ministry of Gender and Community Development, Kampala, 1995, p. 95, mimeographed. «-- back

41. G. Wambuzi and T. Bukenya, Sharing Our World 5: Living Together in Uganda, Macmillan Social Studies Programme, Kampala, 1996, p. 27. «-- back

42. Y. Tandon and A. Raphael, The New Position of East Africa's Asians: Problems of a Displaced Minority, The Minority Rights Group, Report No. 16, London, November 1984, p. 2. «-- back

43. N. Postletwaite, "The conditions of primary schools in least-developed countries", International Review of Education, vol. 44, 1998, No. 4, p. 306. «-- back

44. J. Oloka-Onyango, "Uganda", in P. Baehr and others (eds.) Human Rights in Developing Countries Yearbook 1996, Kluwer Law International & Nordic Human Rights Publications, 1997, p. 399. «-- back

45. C. Watson, Children First. Talking with Your Community about Child Welfare and Development, The Republic of Uganda & UNICEF, Kampala, December 1996, p. 25. «-- back

46. Committee on the Rights of the Child, Initial report of Uganda (CRC/C/3/Add.40), 17 June 1996, para. 211. «-- back

47. B.P. Kiwanuka, Curriculum Review Task Force Report, NCDC, Kampala, 1993. «-- back