The inaccuracies in Daily Monitor articles

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OPINION

By Dr Dennis K. Mugimba (PhD)

The Daily Monitor newspaper recently carried front-page articles that had inaccuracies about two different matters that concern the education sector.

As the minister responsible for the sector, the First Lady/Minister of Education and Sports drew these inaccuracies to the attention of the Managing Director of the Nation Media Group Uganda in a letter dated July 17, 2025.

In their first article of Sunday, July 6, 2025, the Daily Monitor newspaper front-page headline read: “State of Education: Uganda scores an F.” Their article was based on a collaborative report prepared by the Government of Uganda with support from the World Bank.

On Tuesday, July 8, 2025, the Daily Monitor newspaper carried another front-page headline: “Mak drops marks,” in respect to the ranking of Makerere University in Africa by Times Higher Education.

The Daily Monitor newspaper run an inconspicuous correction and apology on Sunday, July 27, 2025, addressing their inaccuracies in the article of July 6, 2025, only. Nothing was said about the inaccuracies carried in the article of July 8, 2025, about Makerere University’s ranking by Times Higher Education.

This is despite the fact that the latter issued a clarification to that effect on July 9, 2025, following the Daily Monitor’s inaccurate and misleading publication on the matter.

On the one hand, the inaccuracies the Daily Monitor newspaper reported on Sunday, July 6, 2025, were:

1. The Daily Monitor inaccurately references the full review Report as a World Bank Report, yet this was not the case.

The report is derived from a review commissioned by the First Lady/Minister of Education and Sports in her capacity as the chairperson of the Human Capital Development Programme.

The programme brings together the Ministry of Education and Sports, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Gender, Labour, and Social Development, as well as the Ministry of Water and Environment. Therefore, it is a collaborative Report jointly prepared by the Human Capital Development Programme Group of the Government of the Republic of Uganda with support from the World Bank and MoFPED.

2. Whereas the Daily Monitor headlined its article about our Education as, “State of Education: Uganda scores an F,” that grading was neither the purpose nor a conclusion arrived at in the said Report. That grading was a creation of the Daily Monitor for reasons best known to the newspaper.
   
   

Therefore, that headline was not only inaccurate but also belittled the purpose of the review exercise and was misleading to the readers.

3. The Daily Monitor inaccurately reported the primary education level retention rate of 60% as a drop-out rate, while at the same time describing it as a retention rate. This left readers who had not had the opportunity to read what the facts are in the full report guessing as to what is accurate – is it the figure, the caption, or the description that follows the caption.
   
   

The correct captioning of the 60% should have been retention rate; not drop-out rate; in accordance with the report.

4. Then, the Daily Monitor inaccurately provided an infographic that depicted 27% as the proportion of the national budget that the Government of Uganda spends on education.
   
   

To the contrary, the report states that 2.7% of Uganda’s GDP in 2021 was spent on education. Given that these two parameters – proportion of the national budget and percentage of GDP, have different meanings, The Daily Monitor ought to have reported accurately about this important metric.

On the other hand, in the article of July 8, 2025, about Makerere University’s ranking by the Times Higher Education, the latter came out to clarify in a letter dated July 9, 2025, to the Director of Quality Assurance of Makerere University, following the Daily Monitor’s inaccurate publication on the same.

First, whereas the Daily Monitor reported Makerere University’s ranking by Times Higher Education as 41st in Africa, the latter clarified that, “The number 41 position stated in the article is inaccurate; institutions within each band are listed alphabetically, not based on score.” In other words, the Daily Monitor confused alphabetical ranking to represent performance ranking.

Second, Times Higher Education further stated as follows about the Daily Monitor’s said article: “The article has conflated the World University Rankings 2025 and sub-Saharan Africa University Rankings when comparing Makerere University’s performance over time; this is also inaccurate.” The objective of informing the public through this press release is threefold: first, to inform all about the inaccuracies the Daily Monitor newspaper reported about the education sector in its front-page headline articles on July 6 and 8, 2025.

Second, to know about the efforts taken by the responsible minister to have Daily Monitor run the necessary corrections and apology.

Lastly, to note the inconspicuous correction and apology run by the Daily Monitor newspaper on July 27, 2025.

The Ministry of Education and Sports remains committed to transparent dissemination of statistics and information concerning the sector and requests the media to reciprocate a similar commitment to giving corrections and apologies a similar level of visibility as the related inaccuracies.

For any inquiries on the subject, you may contact the Office of the Spokesperson by sending an email to pro@education.go.ug


The writer is the spokesperson for the Ministry of Education and Sports