Why government schools remain congested despite private sector boom

Private schools now dominate Uganda’s education system in terms of numbers, but government schools continue to shoulder the country’s biggest learner burden, according to findings from the 2025 Baseline Education Census (BEC) report.

The census findings released by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) on Thursday at its headquarters in Kampala show a widening contrast between ownership and learners’ distribution. Private institutions outnumber public schools at almost every level, while government schools remain significantly more congested, with higher learner-teacher ratios,…