For more than a year, Luzira Upper Prison Inmates Secondary School has gone without a government capitation grant after a digital registration system failed to accommodate one of the country’s most unusual groups of learners, prison inmates.
It is the only government grant aided secondary school within the Uganda Prisons Service offering both Ordinary and Advanced Level education.
It disappeared from the government’s funding records after none of its learners were captured on the Education Management Information System (EMIS).
Paul Malaala Lwidu, Manager of Education Services at KCCA, said the problem stems from the learner registration process, which requires every student to obtain a Learner Identification Number (LIN). He said generating the number requires documentation many inmates are unable to provide because of their current status.
“Inmate learners apparently do not have Learner Identification Numbers because of the documentation required, which many of them cannot acquire given their current status,” Malaala disclosed during the launch of the EMIS guidelines last month.
“As a result, none of them was enrolled on the system.
According to government records, the school has zero learners,” he added in an interview with our reporter.
The omission has had immediate financial consequences. Last year, the Ministry of Education and Sports and the Ministry of Finance introduced new guidelines requiring capitation grants to be disbursed strictly according to the number of learners registered on EMIS.
Under the arrangement, schools whose learners are not captured on the platform receive no capitation funding, regardless of their actual enrolment. Those with only a portion of their learners uploaded receive funding only for the registered learners.
Capitation grants, which are calculated based on enrolment, finance the day-to-day operations of government aided schools.
The funds pay for instructional materials, school administration, management and other operational expenses, including emergencies. Without them, schools struggle to purchase teaching materials and meet routine running costs.
Anatoli Biryomumaisho, the Assistant Commissioner in charge of Education and Vocational Skills Training at the Uganda Prisons Service, confirmed that the school went an entire year without receiving capitation grants and is yet to receive funding in the current financial year.
“This has affected the school’s operations. To keep classes running, the Prisons Service has had to work within its own budget to cover some essential expenses.
Even then, several school activities have either been scaled back or suspended,” Biryomumaisho said.
He said prison authorities have repeatedly engaged the Ministry of Education, arguing that the school falls under a special category that requires a different approach from mainstream schools.
“They listened, and we agreed that instead of Learner Identification Numbers, the inmates would use National Identification Numbers.
NIRA has helped us ensure every learner now has a National Identification Number. We are now waiting for the way forward,” he said.
Vincent Ssozi, an Assistant Commissioner Statistics, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Ministry of Education who has been involved in implementing EMIS, acknowledged that the original system unintentionally excluded learners in institutions such as prisons.
Initially, the platform required every learner to submit details of their biological parents or legal guardians, including their National Identification Numbers and signed consent forms, before a Learner Identification Number could be generated. While the requirement worked for conventional schools, it proved impractical for learners in prisons, orphanages and children’s homes.
“The idea of tagging parents or guardians was to ensure that the learner exists and can be tracked,” Ssozi explained.
Recognising the gap, developers have since modified the system. For learners in institutional settings, the platform now accepts the National Identification Number of the head of the institution as the responsible person.
“Now that they have engaged NIRA, the issue should soon be resolved. It was never intended to lock out such learners. As the system develops, we continue improving it to respond to realities on the ground,” he said.
Luzira’s predicament reflects a wider challenge that emerged after the government linked school funding directly to EMIS enrolment. The reform was introduced to eliminate “ghost learners,” a long-standing practice in which some schools inflated enrolment figures to receive larger capitation grants.
While the reform has strengthened accountability and improved the integrity of education data, it has also exposed gaps affecting learners whose circumstances fall outside conventional education settings.
Formal education has been part of Uganda’s prison rehabilitation programme since 1997. The programme has expanded over the years as correctional services shifted from a punitive approach towards rehabilitation, in line with international standards such as the United Nations Nelson Mandela Rules, which recognise education as a core component of prison reform.
Although prison authorities declined to disclose the school’s current enrolment, the institution remains fully operational. Over the years, it has consistently presented candidates for national examinations and recorded strong academic performance.
In last year’s Uganda Certificate of Education examinations, the school registered 40 candidates, although only 39 eventually sat the examinations. All 39 qualified for certificates, giving the school a 100 percent pass rate among those who sat.
At Advanced Level, 70 candidates registered, but only 68 sat the examinations after some inmates were released before the examination period and did not return. Of those who sat, 31 obtained three principal passes, 15 earned two principal passes, 17 secured one principal pass, while four obtained subsidiary passes only-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
