Uganda's STEM surge: the schools betting on labs over libraries

A-Level science combinations are oversubscribed at a growing band of schools, and the better-run ones are responding with money rather than marketing: working laboratories, technicians who are actually on staff, and computing rooms that are timetabled rather than locked.

The distinction that matters is between schools that offer the subjects and schools that resource them. We looked for practical exam pass rates, the ratio of lab sessions actually run to those on the scheme of work, and whether a school can keep a physics teacher for more than two years. Those three signals, far more than a glossy STEM brochure, predict where a science-minded pupil will thrive.