Uganda: Universal Primary Schooling Succeeds to a Fault

Martin Oketch, 13, sat his Primary Leaving Examinations in Uganda late last year. His first choice for secondary education was St Mary's College Kisubi, one of the country's best boys' schools. "I want to become a doctor like Uncle Nathan,” he says, pointing to his relative. However, Martin's exam results - though good - were just shy of the grades needed to gain admission to Kisubi. He was just one casualty of an increasingly fierce competition to get a place in secondary school - this as Uganda's system of universal primary education (UPE) yields record numbers of primary school graduates.