Abstract:
In Uganda, class determines access to higher education in public universities as well as to scholarships. University education is only consumed by children from wealthy families due to structural inequalities in the way education services are delivered. Children of the wealthy social groups attend the best institutions that have facilities needed for making the good grades required for tertiary admissions to institutions and getting government financial sponsorship. As a result, the majority of students who go to universities as well as those whose expenses are paid by the state come from wealthy classes. Ideally, every person of relevant age (18 - 25) should access higher education and some form of financial assistance. That could only happen if there were sufficient resources that are at the same time well distributed. Due to income differentials, those with high income, supported by structures of social inequality, access higher education and state funding. The government has a responsibility to intervene, through appropriate legislation, to break down these unfair social structures so as to increase equity of access to higher education for all able Ugandans. Unless these structures of inequality are addressed, higher education will increasingly serve sectional rather than the general public.

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Kasozi, A.B.K (2009). Access and equity to higher education in Uganda: Whose children attend university and are paid for by the state?Paper presented in a public lecture on access and equity to higher education at the National Bureau of Statistics, Kampala on 5/02/2009.