Pupils walk home from school along a busy highway in western Uganda. There are many hurdles that prevent Ugandan learners from completing the country’s gruelling education cycle. INDEPENDENT/FILE PHOTO.
UNESCO GEM report shows how early universal education expanded access, but struggled to convert enrolment into meaningful learning
COVER STORY | RONALD MUSOKE | When the Uganda government opened the school gates in the late 1990s to four children per household across the country, it was lauded as one of the most ambitious education reforms in sub-Saharan Africa.
President Yoweri Museveni’s government, through its Universal Primary Education (UPE) programme, scrapped school fees for millions of children, a move that triggered a surge in enrolment which, at the time, was widely celebrated as a breakthrough in access and equity. Classrooms filled almost overnight, and the country was held up as evidence that political will could rapidly change who gets into school.
But nearly three decades later, the story looks less like a straight line of progress. According to UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report 2026, launched in Paris on March 26, the expansion of access did not translate into equivalent gains in learning. Instead, the system absorbed growing numbers of pupils without enough infrastructure, teachers, and learning materials needed to sustain quality at scale.
What emerged was not just an education success story, but a deeper learning crisis inside a rapidly expanded system. While enrolment increased, completion and foundational learning outcomes have struggled to keep pace, especially in under-resourced and rural schools. The result is a system where more children are in classrooms than ever before, but too many are still leaving without the basic skills those classrooms were meant to deliver.
Uganda’s education story
Uganda’s education trajectory is shaped by a long and difficult history. In the decades following independence, civil conflict repeatedly disrupted development. Even after relative stability returned in 1986, violence persisted in parts of the country for another two decades, especially in the north, where displacement, insecurity, and the recruitment of child soldiers left deep social scars. By the time hostilities ended in 2006, the country faced not only infrastructure rebuilding but also institutional recovery, including trust in public education.
It was in this context that Uganda became an early champion of “Education for All.” The introduction of UPE in 1997 marked a defining moment. Enrolment surged almost immediately; from 3.1 million pupils in 1996 to 5.3 million in 1997, reaching 7.6 million by 2003. At first glance, this appeared to be one of Africa’s most successful mass education expansions.
But completion data complicates the picture. For instance, between 1990 and 2000, primary completion rose steadily from 39% to 51%, notes the UNESCO report. In the decade after UPE, progress slowed to 60% by 2010. Thereafter, Uganda entered a period of stagnation, gradually falling behind regional averages after briefly approaching them in the early 2000s.
According to the report, a key feature of this system is over-age enrolment. Many Ugandan children start school late, repeat grades, and progress slowly. Although primary education is designed to end around age 12, many learners stay in school well into their mid-teens. Even using extended age cohorts, completion remains uneven and delayed, notes the report. As a result, repetition has been a persistent constraint. Despite an official policy of automatic promotion, repetition rates averaged 11% between 2000 and 2017. The report notes that the gap between policy and practice reflects deeper structural weaknesses in classroom capacity, teacher availability, and school supervision. The result is a system where enrolment does not guarantee progression. Children may be counted in school statistics but are not necessarily moving through the system efficiently, and many eventually drop out.
Evidence of stagnation
Recent data reinforce this concern. National survey rounds show little improvement in adolescent school attendance over time. The 2022 demographic survey published by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) presents mixed outcomes, with gender disparities widening in some cases.
Other indicators point downward. The UNESCO report points to the 2021 National Service Delivery Survey which showed that net enrolment declined between 2015 and 2021 while the share of children who have never attended school has increased significantly. Learning outcomes have also weakened, with fewer adolescents reaching expected competency levels compared to earlier cohorts. COVID-19 school closures intensified these trends, but the underlying stagnation predates the pandemic, the report notes.
Governance without coherence
According to the report, Uganda’s decentralized education system has created both opportunity and fragmentation. While districts are responsible for delivery, the central government retains control over curriculum, standards, and examinations. In practice, this split has produced coordination challenges, notes the report. Districts often lack the fiscal autonomy to implement reforms effectively, while national policies are unevenly executed at local level. The result is a system with distributed responsibility but uneven authority, a structural tension repeatedly flagged in national assessments.
According to the report, although public education spending initially expanded rapidly, reaching 25% of government expenditure in the late 1990s, this commitment was not sustained. Over time, education’s share of the national budget declined significantly, falling to under 10% in recent years. As a share of GDP, spending has remained low by global standards.
Pupils at a UPE school in Katakwi. According to a UNESCO Report, the expansion of access did not translate into equivalent gains in learning. FILE PHOTO URN
This underinvestment is visible in schools. Capitation grants are insufficient, forcing institutions to rely on parental contributions despite the official abolition of school fees. In 2018, it was estimated that achieving UPE of good quality would require raising per pupil spending from Shs 10,000 (USD 3) to at least Shs 59,000 to Shs 63,000 for rural and urban schools but primary school allocations for 2025/26 were still Shs 18,000 per pupil, which means schools depend on parent–teacher association contributions to cover basic expenses.
For many households, education costs remain the primary reason children drop out. Estimates suggest that achieving quality universal primary education would require per-pupil funding several times higher than current allocations.
Privatisation and inequality
Interestingly, the funding gap has fuelled the expansion of private schooling. Private enrolment has risen steadily over the past two decades, now accounting for a substantial share of primary education in urban areas. This shift has increased inequality. Household spending on education is significantly higher than global averages, meaning access to quality schooling is increasingly dependent on income. The original promise of school fees-free universal education has therefore been partially undermined by informal and indirect costs.
Infrastructure constraints, too, remain severe. Many schools operate with overcrowded classrooms, in some cases exceeding 100 pupils per class. Teacher shortages are equally acute. Although recruitment expanded in the early years of UPE, enrolment growth far outpaced staffing increases. The average pupil–teacher ratio remains high, with some districts significantly above national averages. Refugee-hosting regions, especially in northwestern Uganda, face additional pressure, reflecting Uganda’s dual reality as both a humanitarian leader and a system under strain.
A global crisis of access and equity
At the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, the GEM Report situated Uganda’s experience within a wider global paradox: education systems around the world have expanded dramatically, but exclusion remains persistent. Since 2000, global enrolment has surged by hundreds of millions of learners, and gender parity has largely been achieved in basic education. Women now outnumber men in higher education globally.
Yet exclusion remains significant. Hundreds of millions of children and youth remain out of school, with numbers rising again in recent years after earlier gains. The UNESCO Director-General Khaled El-Enany described the situation as both progress and unfinished responsibility, stressing that each excluded child represents a lost opportunity rather than a statistic.
“Each of them deprived of the chance for a better future, El-Enany said at the launch. “This is not just about statistics… it’s about lived experiences; lives transformed through education.” The system, he noted, is increasingly shaped by crisis contexts; from conflict zones to climate disruption, where education continuity is constantly under threat.
Equity as the defining challenge
Speaking via video link, the UN Deputy Secretary-General, Amina J. Mohammed, emphasised that access alone is no longer sufficient. While millions have entered education systems since 2000, she warned that inequality remains deeply embedded. The poorest, most rural, and most marginalized children are still the least likely to complete schooling.
“The children still out of school tend to be the poorest and mostly rural,” she said. “In many parts of the world, they are overwhelmingly girls.” One in three young people, she added, will not complete secondary education under current trajectories. Without acceleration, universal completion may not be achieved until the next century.
For Mohammed, the warning was also structural. Financing mechanisms are not reaching those most in need, and only one in five countries has equitable systems at scale. “Children are falling into the gap between structures and political commitment,” she said. Her message to the ministers gathered in Paris was direct: “Every year we fall short… is a year they will not recover from.”
She highlighted structural weaknesses in financing systems, noting that only a minority of countries have equity-focused mechanisms that reach disadvantaged learners at scale. Without accelerated progress, universal completion could take generations.
Ministers of Education from several countries pose for a photo shortly after the launch of the 2026 Global Education Monitoring Report at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris on March 26. COURTESY PHOTO/UNESCO.
Progress and its limits
But, the OECD Director for Education and Skills, Andreas Schleicher, rejected the idea of stagnation, arguing instead that the world is witnessing unprecedented expansion in educational opportunity. He pointed to rapid growth in pre-primary and post-secondary education, describing the last two decades as the largest expansion in human education history. “We set bold goals,” he said, “but here we are, 2030 around the corner, and we know we will leave millions of children behind.”
Yet he still warned against focusing only on gaps. “Behind the headlines of 273 million children still out of school, there are 1.4 billion learners in classrooms today.” For Schleicher, the expansion itself is historic. Pre-primary education has expanded by 45%, post-secondary by 160%, and entire regions have transformed their schooling systems in a single generation. “That’s not stagnation,” he said. “That’s the largest expansion of opportunity in human history.”
But he also acknowledged a central tension: ambition is now outpacing system capacity. “When ambition outruns capacity, credibility takes a hit,” he said. Still, he cautioned against lowering expectations. “I’d rather live in a world in which ambition stretches us beyond our limits than one where we quietly lower the bar,” he said.
His diagnosis of the system was structural rather than moral. Education, he argued, is not a stable engineering problem but a “complex system” shaped by shifting technologies, labour markets, and political realities. “What worked five years ago may be obsolete tomorrow,” he said. Progress depends not on rigid plans, but on systems that learn; iterating, adapting, and scaling what works.
Global success stories
Indeed, beneath the troubling trends lies a quieter but powerful success story. Since the turn of the millennium, global enrolment has surged dramatically. In 2024 alone, 1.4 billion students were enrolled in school, an increase of 327 million learners in primary and secondary education compared to the turn of the century. This represents a 30% rise, alongside even faster growth in other levels: 45% in pre-primary and an extraordinary 161% in post-secondary education.
Put differently, more than 25 additional children have been entering school every minute for the past two decades, the report noted. This expansion is not abstract. It reflects transformative changes within countries. Ethiopia, for instance, increased its primary enrolment rate from 18% in 1974 to 84% in 2024. China expanded access to tertiary education from just 7% in 1999 to over 60% in 2024. These examples underscore the report’s central argument: progress is possible, even dramatic, when policies align with national contexts and long-term commitment.
Indeed, several countries have achieved remarkable reductions in out-of-school rates—by as much as 80% since 2000. Madagascar and Togo have done so among children, Morocco and Viet Nam among adolescents, and Georgia and Türkiye among youth. Côte d’Ivoire has halved its out-of-school rates across all age groups. These cases demonstrate that while global trends may appear discouraging, national trajectories can diverge significantly.
Success countries show off winning formulae
In Paris, during the report launch, several countries whose education ministers were in attendance presented more optimistic trajectories. Uzbekistan’s Minister of Pre-school and School Education, Ezozkhon Karimova, described her country’s near-universal inclusion, with access reaching 98% and rapid expansion of early childhood education. She noted that reforms are now entering a more complex phase requiring consolidation.
Turkey’s Deputy Minister of National Education, Bilal Macit, highlighted long-term investment that raised pre-primary enrolment from under 20% to over 95%, driven by sustained budget prioritization and teacher development. Brazil’s National Secretary of Basic Education, Kátia Schweickardt, emphasised constitutional guarantees and social protection policies, stressing that access without retention is insufficient while China’s Minister of Education, Huai Jinpeng, pointed to large-scale expansion of higher education alongside alignment with economic transformation and innovation-driven development.
Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Minister for Planning, Saad Al-Ghamdi, described rapid institutional expansion and increasing reliance on data systems to improve quality and labour market alignment. Across all cases, a shared pattern emerges: sustained political commitment, investment in teachers, and systems thinking are more decisive than enrolment growth alone.
Beyond access: the rise of completion
The UNESCO report notes that since the turn of the millennium, completion rates have improved across all levels: from 77% to 88% in primary education, from 60% to 78% in lower secondary, and from 37% to 61% in upper secondary.
One reason is the significant decline in grade repetition—down by 62% in primary and 38% in lower secondary education since 2000. Fewer children are getting stuck in the system, even if many still enter late or progress slowly. These gains signal meaningful progress.
However, they also reveal the limits of current trajectories. At the present pace—roughly one percentage point increase per year in upper secondary completion—the world will not reach 95% completion until 2105, warned Manos Antoninis, the Director of the UNESCO GEM Report. This projection underscores the gap between ambition and reality, he said.
The relationship between enrolment, completion, and exclusion is also more complex than it appears. While out-of-school rates have stagnated, completion rates have continued to improve. In many low- and lower-middle-income countries, delayed enrolment and extended schooling trajectories remain common. The gap between “timely” and “ultimate” completion—those finishing within a few years of the official age versus much later—continues to widen, especially in low-income contexts. This suggests that access alone is not enough; the structure and efficiency of education systems also matter.
In her foreword to the report, Jutta Urpilainen, the Chair of the GEM Report Advisory Board, delivers one of the most direct and unsettling assessments of global education today: access alone is no longer the central problem—equity is.
“Getting children through the school gate is only half the battle,” she writes. “Who gets through it, and on what terms, is the other half, and it is the half we have been losing.” Her argument cuts through the celebratory narrative of expansion that has defined the past two decades. Yes, more children are in school than ever before. But that growth, she warns, has not translated into fairness.
“A system can grow dramatically and still leave its poorest, most rural, most marginalized children systematically behind.” The persistence of exclusion, she argues, is not accidental. “When we look honestly… we see the same groups, in the same places, generation after generation. That is not misfortune. It is the predictable consequence of systems financed and governed without them in mind.”
Her critique extends to how progress itself is measured. Governments often point to rising budgets, new schools, and increased enrolment as evidence of commitment. But, as Urpilainen notes, “these tell us almost nothing about whether the children who have been failed the longest are finally being reached.” Without deliberate redistribution, even increased spending can reinforce inequality: “Neutral financing in an unequal system entrenches the status quo.”
For Urpilainen, the conclusion is ultimately political. “Equity-oriented financing means designing transfers with explicit redistribution criteria,” she argues. The tools exist—cash transfers, school feeding, targeted support—but the question is whether governments are willing to fund them at the scale required. Until then, she cautions, the promise of education for all will remain unfulfilled.
Janet Kataaha Museveni, the Minister of Education and Sports shows to the press the results of the 2025 Uganda Certificate of Advanced Education (UACE) following their release on March 13 by the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) in Kampala. COURTESY PHOTO/JANET K. MUSEVENI X HANDLE.
Beyond education: the role of broader systems
One of the report’s most important insights is that education outcomes cannot be understood, or improved, through education policy alone. Broader social and economic factors play a decisive role. For example, making education compulsory, not just free, has been shown to add over a year of schooling in 14 African countries.
When combined with child labour laws, the gains are even greater. Similarly, electrification has been linked to nearly an additional year of schooling in Cambodia, while school feeding programmes can add up to half a year of learning for every US$100 spent. Cash transfers tied to school attendance also demonstrate strong effects, increasing the likelihood of enrolment by 36%. These examples illustrate the power of integrated policy approaches that address both supply and demand.
At the same time, the report cautions against overreliance on short-term experimental studies that claim to identify “what works.” While valuable, such studies often overlook the institutional foundations needed to sustain progress at scale over long periods. Durable change, the report argues, depends on coherent policy frameworks, strong institutions, and long-term commitment.
Stefania Giannini, the outgoing Assistant Director General at UNESCO noted that the latest GEM Report forces a difficult but necessary reframing of the global education challenge. The problem, she argues, is no longer primarily about getting children into school—it is about what happens after they arrive.
“With the launch of the 2026 Global Education Monitoring Report, we face a stark reality,” she said. “273 million children, adolescents and youth were out of school in 2024… a number that has risen for seven consecutive years.” But the deeper warning lies beneath the headline figure. “The challenge is no longer just about expanding access… it’s also about keeping learners in school.”
In her analysis, the geography of exclusion has shifted. “In the early 2000s, the main barrier was entry… Today, nearly half of those who are out of school are of upper secondary age.” In other words, exclusion is no longer concentrated at the starting point of education systems, but increasingly at the point of exit. “Dropout has become a structural phenomenon, not an exception.”
Giannini linked this shift to systemic pressures that have accumulated over time. In many low-income countries, she notes, “population growth continues to outplace system expansion,” while reforms such as fee abolition and school construction have expanded access without resolving deeper constraints. The result is predictable: “enormous pressure on systems already facing teacher shortages… overcrowding and declining quality of learning and teaching. Under these conditions, retention inevitably suffers.”
She also stressed that exclusion is not a single moment but a gradual process. “Dropout is not a single event. It’s a process… that begins with regular attendance at school and ends in permanent exclusion.” This process is often masked by contradictory indicators, where completion rates improve even as exclusion persists. “We must therefore look beyond entry to whether learners stay, progress and succeed.”
Uganda and the unfinished promise
For Uganda, the global story lands with particular force. The country that once symbolized rapid expansion now reflects the challenge of converting access into learning. The school gates were opened. The task now is what happens inside them.
Across the world, the same question persists: not whether children are in school, but whether education systems are delivering the learning, equity, and opportunity those children were promised. In that sense, the UNESCO report does not close the story of global education progress. It reopens it, revealing not a failure of ambition, but an unfinished project still struggling to catch up with itself.
