Speaking to journalists at the President's Office today after releasing the 2016 Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) results, the minister acknowledged that the budgetary cuts will not only affect the education ministry but all other ministries.
According to the proposed budget framework paper for 2017-2018, the ministry of education and sports budget will be cut from 12% to 10%. She said that all ministries' budgets will be cut to cater for funds for irrigation.
In the financial year 2016/17, the Ministry was allocated 2.7 trillion Shillings which is likely to drop by 2%.
The minister, who is also the First Lady, noted that because because of the shortages of food in the country due to climate change, the government will focus on irrigation to boost agriculture.
She appealed to members in the education sector to be ready to sacrifice.
Museveni however said that funding should not explain the poor performance or failure to have education in the country. She added that parents in rural areas must play a role and not leave all responsibilities to government.
Results of the 2016 PLE examinations show that urban areas performed better than rural districts. The performing districts were Serere, Namutumba, Luuka, Kween, Mayuge, Kaliro, Kyankwanzi, Bulambuli and Iganga among others.
The poor performance of most schools in rural areas is attributed to lack of motivation for teachers to be in the hard-to-reach areas which continue to register many school dropouts.
-URN