Rising tuition fees in Catholic schools push African families to the brink

Catholic schools in Uganda face criticism for high tuition fees, risking exclusion of poor families, sparking concerns of privatisation.

A crying parent with an unpaid tuition balance walked into the staff room of a Catholic private school and begged the teachers to help enrol her son.

The school’s policy required the woman pay at least 60% of her son’s full tuition bill before he could join the student body. She didn’t have the money and was led away. “She was pleading, ‘Please help me,’” said Beatrice Akite, a teacher at St. Kizito Secondary School in Uganda’s capital city, who witnessed the outburst.

Two weeks into second term, Ms. Akite recounted the woman’s desperate moment to highlight how distressed parents are being crushed by unpredictable fees they can’t pay, forcing their children to drop out of school. It’s leaving many in sub-Saharan Africa — which has the world’s highest dropout rates — to criticise the mission-driven Catholic Church for not doing enough to ease the financial pressure families face.

The Catholic Church is the region’s largest nongovernmental investor in education. Catholic schools have long been a pillar of affordable but high-quality education, especially for poor families.

Their appeal remains strong even with competition from other nongovernmental investors now eyeing schools as enterprises for profit. The growing trend toward privatisation is sparking concern that the Catholic Church may price out the people who need uplifting.

Ms. Akite hopes Catholic leaders support measures that would streamline fees across schools of comparable quality.

Kampala’s St. Kizito Secondary School, where Ms. Akite teaches literature, was founded by priests of the Comboni missionary order, known for its dedication to serving poor communities. Its students come mostly from working-class families and tuition per term is roughly $300, a substantial sum in a country where GDP per capita was about $1,000 in 2023. Yet that tuition is lower than at many other Catholic-run schools in Kampala, Ms. Akite said.