Tax Ed in Uganda

Uganda has made progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4). However, the education system remains marked by deep inequalities across region, wealth, gender, and disability, compounded by a severe shortage of teachers.

Urgent action is needed in Uganda to tackle inequalities that prevent many children from completing a full cycle of quality education. A key priority is greater public investment in education, including scaling up a well-supported, qualified teaching workforce and and investing in an equitable, quality public education system.

This requires greater public investment, guided by the TaxEd Alliance’s 4S approach:

Share – Allocate a larger share of the budget to education
Size – Expand overall revenues through fair taxation and debt justice
Sensitivity – Target spending to reach the most marginalised
Scrutiny – Strengthen transparency and accountability so that funds reach schools

In particular, Uganda must urgently increase the share of the budget allocated towards education to at least 20% and leverage progressive, gender-responsive, and climate-sensitive tax policy reforms to increase its tax-to-GDP ratio in order to expand its public spending capacity to meet the costs of SDG 4.

See the key statistics below and read the full briefing here.