DR. OPUL JOSEPH: An Open Letter to H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni

You’re Excellency,

Allow me to extend my heartfelt New Year greetings and sincere congratulations to you upon your election to lead Uganda for another term, 2026–2031. I also take this opportunity to commend your leadership and service to the nation over the last four decades a period marked by political stability, expanded access to education, improved infrastructure, and regional influence.

At the same time, Your Excellency, it is widely acknowledged that extreme poverty and youth unemployment remain persistent challenges often described by citizens and analysts alike as “thorns in the flesh” of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government. Most Affected Region:

Karamoja (74.2%), Bukedi (29.9%), Teso (29.8%), Northern Region (General): Poverty rate around 26.8% (UBOS survey-reports ,2025) among others. These challenges have shaped public sentiment, particularly among young people, and have influenced political realignments over recent years. It is against this background that I respectfully draw your attention to what I believe is the missing link in Uganda’s 40-year struggle to decisively end extreme poverty: the strategic repositioning of education as a direct driver of business startups, accelerations, business, innovations, and job creation.

I write to call for a bold, unified education revolution one that intentionally positions Uganda’s entire education ecosystem, from Early Childhood Development (ECD) through primary, secondary, tertiary, vocational, and university education, as the country’s primary incubator for entrepreneurs, innovators, problem-solvers, and job creators. Education must move beyond preparing learners to seek jobs; it must prepare them to create jobs, build enterprises, solve real problems, and compete globally. When fully aligned, our education system can become Uganda’s most powerful and sustainable engine against poverty, unemployment, overdependence on imports, and youth disenfranchisement.

Education institutions are not merely centers of academic instruction; they are natural nurseries of innovation and enterprise. With deliberate leadership and coordination today by the Honourable Minister of Education and Sports, State Ministers, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education and Sports, Vice Chancellors, Principals of tertiary institutions, Commissioners and Heads of Departments, the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC), the Directorate of Education Standards (DES), District Education Officers, school inspectors, head teachers, and both local and international development partners these long-standing challenges can be decisively addressed within the next decade.

However, Uganda’s education institutions have struggled to integrate effectively with incubators, startups, accelerators, and innovation ecosystems across all levels.

Curricula and institutional cultures remain largely academic and theory-driven, with limited emphasis on practical, market-oriented entrepreneurship. Research within Ugandan universities consistently shows that entrepreneurship education is predominantly classroom-based, offering little exposure to real business creation, product development, market validation, or scaling. As a result, many graduates leave the education system without the skills, confidence, networks, or financing pathways required to start and grow enterprises that could meaningfully reduce poverty and unemployment.

At a systemic level, Uganda’s education innovation ecosystem is further constrained by fragmented infrastructure, weak commercialization pathways, and limited access to early-stage financing for innovations emerging from schools and universities. Studies on innovation and commercialization in Ugandan research institutions reveal significant gaps in technology transfer offices, institution-linked incubators, and venture financing mechanisms gaps that prevent promising ideas from reaching the market. This fragmentation stands in stark contrast to developed economies, where education institutions are deliberately embedded within national innovation strategies and linked directly to incubators, accelerators, venture capital, and industry partnerships.

In benchmark countries, universities and education systems do not merely teach entrepreneurship they produce entrepreneurs. In the United Kingdom, the SETsquared Partnership an incubator network led by five universities has supported thousands of startups and facilitated successful technology transfer. In the United States, institutions such as Carnegie Mellon University’s Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship integrate curriculum, mentorship, industry collaboration, and funding into a seamless startup pipeline. These ecosystems are supported by strong knowledge-transfer offices, formal industry linkages, and predictable financing channels structures that remain underdeveloped or unevenly distributed in Uganda.

Another major barrier is the uneven implementation of entrepreneurship and innovation education across regions and education levels. Opportunities to engage with startup ecosystems are concentrated in a few urban centers and select universities, leaving millions of learners across the country excluded. While commendable initiatives exist such as engineering boot camps, innovation hubs, and university industry partnerships these remain isolated and insufficiently scaled. By contrast, developed education systems introduce entrepreneurial thinking early, sustain it through higher education, and connect learners continuously to incubators, mentors, markets, and policy support, creating clear pathways from ideas to enterprises to economic impact.
The consequences for poverty reduction and leadership development are profound.

Where education systems are weakly linked to economic opportunity, graduates naturally gravitate toward scarce formal jobs rather than entrepreneurship, limiting job creation and innovation. In countries that have successfully embedded entrepreneurship within education, startup formation, employment growth, and economic resilience have followed demonstrating that education-led innovation is one of the most effective long-term strategies for inclusive development.
Your Excellency, this vision aligns fully with the Government of Uganda’s Tenfold Growth Strategy, which seeks to expand the economy from approximately USD 50 billion in 2023 to USD 500 billion by 2040 through agro-industrialization, tourism, minerals, and science, technology and innovation (ATMS). Education is the cross-cutting catalyst that will make this transformation achievable, inclusive, and sustainable. Without an education system intentionally designed to produce innovators, entrepreneurs, and skilled producers, this ambitious growth target will remain difficult to realize.

This approach also directly supports the ambitions of OSFA and QECL to catalyze 20 millions of business startups, innovations, and accelerations, and to facilitate 40 million large-scale job creation across Uganda and the Global South by 2035.

Embedding entrepreneurship, innovation, practical skills, and problem-solving across all education levels will transform learners into producers, employers, and global competitors rather than lifelong job seekers.
I therefore respectfully call upon H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, President of the Republic of Uganda and President-elect for 2026–2031, to decisively champion this education revolution by directing all education leaders, policymakers, implementers, and development partners to fully commit to:

Policy Recommendation: It is proposed that the assessment framework be structured to include an equal emphasis on practical and theoretical knowledge. Specifically, 50% of the assessment should focus on practical, innovative entrepreneurship, including startups, innovations, and job creation. The remaining 50% should be dedicated to knowledge-based evaluation, ensuring a balanced approach that fosters both practical skills and conceptual understanding.

This approach aims to encourage innovation-driven entrepreneurship while maintaining academic rigor.50% of assessment should practical innovative Entrepreneurship, Startups, innovations, job creation and 50% knowledge based assessment Mainstreaming practical and innovative entrepreneurship across all education levels, Investing in teacher capacity building, Establishing innovation hubs and incubators within institutions,
Strengthening industry linkages and commercialization pathways,
Expanding financing mechanisms for student and graduate startups, and
Deepening public–private partnerships.
By doing so, Uganda can emerge as a model nation in the Global South self-reliant, innovative, industrialized, and led by empowered citizens shaped through a transformative education system.

The time to act collectively is now. The future of Uganda’s economy, social stability, and global competitiveness depends on how boldly we reimagine and reposition education today.

Dr. Opul Joseph, PhD
Lecturer, Gulu University
Director, Quality Education Consultancy Ltd (QECL)
Founder, OPUL Skilling Foundation Africa (OSFA)
ceo@opulskillingfpundationafrica.org