Remuneration, Morale, and Learning: Policy Pathways to Improve Teachers’ Satisfaction and Students’ Performance in Uganda’s Government Secondary Schools

Introduction

Teacher remuneration is widely acknowledged as a critical component affecting instructional quality, teacher retention, and motivation, all of which have an effect on student accomplishment. In international studies and policy debates, compensation is viewed as a tool that affects non-monetary aspects crucial to good instruction in addition to being a question of financial stability. When it comes to influencing teacher morale and classroom practices, recognition, workload management, job stability, and professional development opportunities are just as crucial as base pay.^1,2 Fair, timely, and adequate compensation supports stable teaching staff, reduces turnover, and fosters learning environments that support high-quality teaching, particularly in resource-constrained settings with diverse student needs, according to scholarly reviews and a number of international organizations during the 2020–2025 period. In this literature, remuneration design is positioned within larger human resource and governance frameworks that dictate how policies are applied in day-to-day classroom operations, such as supervision, career advancement pathways, payroll accuracy, and budget cycles.^3–6

One of the main goals of international scholarship is non-monetary factors that influence teacher motivation must be taken into account in addition to compensation. According to recent research, compensation influences teaching strategies and student learning results in concert with recognition, workload management, professional development opportunities, and encouraging work environments.^7–9 When teachers perceive fairness in remuneration When perceive a legitimate path for professional development and career advancement, discretionary effort typically rises, resulting in improved classroom management, more effective teaching, and more student engagement.^10–12 On the other hand, perceived salary disparities and a lack of realistic career paths can lower morale, increase the likelihood of turnover, and lower the quality of instruction.^13,14 These factors highlight how crucial it is to create compensation plans that are open, fair, prompt in their distribution, and in line with more comprehensive plans for student outcomes and school improvement. (latest policy briefs, country case studies, and global meta-analyses from 2020 to 2025).

Both commonalities and context-specific variations are shown by regional and continental viewpoints. Researchers have shown that disparate pay structures in Africa are marked by sporadic payments, unequal benefits, and few prospects for professional growth, all of which can lower teacher morale and obstruct instructional advancement.^15–17 These problems don’t happen in a vacuum; they interact with public sector reform agendas, budget cycles, decentralization dynamics, and governance systems. Evidence suggests a connection between teacher dedication, payroll dependability, and compensation adequacy in several East African contexts, which in turn affects student involvement and accomplishment.^16,18,19 However, the size, mechanisms, and pathways by which remuneration, how changes result in learning gains differ among nations, educational institutions, and resource contexts, highlighting the necessity of evidence-based and contextually sensitive policy solutions. While emphasizing the significance of piloting, modifying, and scaling compensation reforms in ways that respect fiscal realities and administrative capacity, this regional knowledge base offers a crucial context for comprehending how lessons from Uganda might inform neighbouring settings and vice versa.^20–22

Government secondary schools in Uganda function in a severely budget-constrained setting where pay check delays, low pay scales, and unequal access to benefits and allowances are enduring obstacles to long-term teacher motivation and high-quality education.^23,24 Teacher morale and the continuation of teaching are directly impacted by timely disbursements and payroll integrity, making the public sector wage bill a key policy field. Perceptions of workload management, fair compensation, and access to professional development are all consistently linked to teacher job satisfaction in empirical research and policy studies conducted between 2020 and 2025.^25,26 However, there are still significant gaps in our knowledge of the exact processes by which Remuneration reforms result in better student results in Uganda’s various regions.^27,28 What certain aspects of compensation packages—like the design of the salary structure, the predictability of payouts, and the targeting of allowances—interact with non-monetary incentives to influence teaching methods and student learning are among the crucial topics. To ensure that changes are not only theoretically sound but also practically implementable at the district and school levels, phased, regionally adaptive reform frameworks that complement current funding and administrative capacities are also required.^29,30

According to SET, which serves as the theoretical foundation for this policy brief, employee attitudes and behaviours are influenced by reciprocal interactions with their organization. On the one hand, when policies are seen as fair, helpful, and beneficial, trust, dedication, and discretionary effort increase; on the other hand, perceived injustices can lower morale and performance.^30–34 In the field of education, SET sheds light on how Remuneration reforms are integrated into the broader social context of schools, encompassing interactions with local communities, coworkers, and leadership.³⁵ Teachers are more likely to translate when remuneration policies combine financial incentives with positive working conditions, open communication, acknowledgment, and professional growth. Additionally, it is more likely that teachers will convert their higher morale into better teaching methods and better learning outcomes for students when remuneration policy design incorporates financial incentives with encouraging working conditions, open communication, acknowledgment, and professional development opportunities.^1,36,37 This theoretical framework encourages a comprehensive approach to reform, in which compensation reforms are essential components of a larger ecosystem for school improvement that also involves leadership quality,²⁹ supervision, resource provision, and a culture of continuous professional learning. By emphasizing SET, the policy brief draws attention to the relational and organizational components of Remuneration and urges policymakers to adopt adjustments that promote trust between teachers, school officials, and the educational system at large.

This model also highlights the importance of flexible governance, accountability systems, and stakeholder participation to sustain gains in student achievement and teacher satisfaction over time. Translating SET-informed insights into practical policy directions that are evidence-based, flexible, and scalable for Uganda’s government secondary schools and their regional variations is what makes this policy brief significant. Policy design must strike a balance between practicality, equity, and efficiency in a setting where high national education goals coexist with budgetary limits.^38–41 The brief provides a tangible menu of reforms for policymakers, development partners, and school leaders by outlining how certain aspects of compensation, such as timely disbursement, clear salary scales, targeted allowances, and payroll integrity, interact with non-monetary supports to affect classroom practices and learning outcomes. The regional and district diversity across Uganda further underscores the need for phased, contextually tailored implementation plans that can be monitored and adjusted based on robust data.^41,42 The policy implications extend beyond Uganda, offering lessons for sub-Saharan Africa in designing remuneration systems that reinforce teacher motivation, retention, and student achievement within fiscally constrained public sectors.

Despite policy commitments to improve teacher remuneration in Uganda, persistent gaps in timely disbursement, perceived fairness of pay, and the alignment of monetary incentives with non-monetary supports continue to constrain teacher morale and instructional performance in government secondary schools.^16,43 These gaps have downstream consequences for student engagement, achievement, and progression, potentially undermining national education goals and sustainable development targets. The problem is twofold: first, to diagnose how remuneration policy design and implementation shape teacher satisfaction across diverse Ugandan districts; second, to identify how those satisfaction levels translate into classroom practices and student outcomes.

On the remuneration front, a growing body of evidence from 2020–2025 indicates that delays in salary payments, opaque pay scales, and irregular access to allowances erode trust in the education system and reduce teachers’ willingness to invest effort in improving instructional quality. For example, global syntheses emphasize that timely and predictable compensation supports stability in teaching, reduces turnover, and fosters conditions conducive to professional growth, all of which are linked to better classroom practice and student learning.^44–46 Yet, in Uganda, these improvements have not consistently materialized, with district and school-level studies reporting pay delays, discrepancies in allowances, and limited career progression pathways that dampen morale and retention. This misalignment between monetary rewards and the broader work environment undermines the potential gains from remuneration reform.

Secondly, the literature shows that non-monetary supports such as professional development, mentoring, clear career ladders, supportive supervision, and improved working conditions are critical complements to remuneration, shaping how teachers translate compensation into effective teaching.^47–50 However, in Uganda, the integration of monetary and non-monetary incentives remains uneven, and there is limited causal evidence on how specific remuneration attributes interact with non-monetary supports to influence teaching practices and student outcomes, and an insufficient understanding of how these dynamics play out across urban, peri-urban, and rural districts with varying resource endowments.^27,43 This gap complicates the design of coherent reform packages that are both effective and fiscally sustainable.

Evidence gaps that are pertinent to the creation and application of policies are another aspect of the issue. Few thorough, locally based studies have been conducted in Uganda that demonstrate a causal relationship between certain aspects of compensation (such as the design of the pay scale, the time and regularity of disbursements, and the targeting of allowances) and quantifiable student results.^43,51,52 Regional heterogeneity is also important because, while district resource limitations, student-teacher ratios, and urban-rural differences may mitigate the efficiency of pay changes, there is little evidence to inform region-specific policy decisions.⁵³ The policymakers require phased reform roadmaps that are in line with Uganda’s budget cycles, governance structures, and district-level school-improvement initiatives, such as leadership development and performance-supported supervision, to ensure that reforms are scalable, sustainable, and able to produce measurable learning gains. Lastly, even when there is evidence of what works, there is frequently a gap between research insights and operational guidance.

It takes more than a series of isolated acts to address these problems in a comprehensive, theory-informed way. When paired with growth possibilities and encouraging surroundings, trust, commitment, and selfless work rise, improving the quality of education and student learning.^31,54 Conversely, perceived inequities or disjointed reform components can erode morale and weaken the intended impact on classroom practice. This problem statement foregrounds the need for integrated policy design that links remuneration design and disbursement timeliness with non-monetary supports and school-improvement mechanisms, tested through phased, regionally adaptive implementation. This policy brief aims to increase regional understanding of effective pay reform in the educational systems of low- and middle-income countries while also generating evidence-based suggestions for policymakers, development partners, and school administrators. Apart from generating evidence-based suggestions for policymakers, development partners, and school administrators, this policy brief aims to increase regional understanding of effective pay reform in low- and middle-income countries’ educational systems.

Policy outcomes and implications

This section provides a thorough summary of the expected policy results, the causal relationships between learning gains and pay reform, and the useful ramifications for researchers, practitioners, politicians, and development partners. It converts the framework for remuneration-morale learning into a logical, flexible, and scalable collection of implications that may direct implementation, evaluation, and decision-making. Learning outcomes and instructional quality, teacher morale, motivation, and retention, equality, governance, system-wide efficiency, and budgetary feasibility and implementation management are the four interconnected domains around which the analysis is structured.^46,51 Every area incorporates anticipated results with the underlying mechanisms, monitoring indicators, possible hazards, and policy recommendations, all the while keeping Uganda’s regional and district variety and the larger Sub-Saharan Africa setting front and centre. The policy outcomes section, which has its roots in Social Exchange Theory (SET), views pay reform as a composite intervention that distributes funds through a two-way, trust-based connection between educators and the educational system.^31,34 The main idea is that prompt, equitable compensation and legitimate career advancement indicate organizational support, which raises teacher morale, encourages discretionary work, and improves the quality of instruction. Improved working conditions, mentoring, professional development, and supportive supervision, when combined with monetary reforms, increase the link between higher morale and quantifiable learning gains. The policy implications place a strong emphasis on implementation that is incremental, regionally specific, and respectful of Uganda’s administrative capabilities, financial limitations, and requirement for strong monitoring and learning loops.

It is anticipated that pay reform will enable measurable increases in student engagement, attendance, and success through better teaching quality. Schools should, in particular, improve formative assessment practices, promote higher levels of student involvement, and use evidence-based teaching tactics more frequently. These changes are expected to eventually lead to better progression to upper secondary levels, lower dropout rates among vulnerable groups, and higher core subject pass rates. There are several layers to the mechanism. For instance, teachers who receive regular and predictable rewards are less stressed and cognitively taxed by financial uncertainty, which allows them to devote more mental space to planning, differentiation, and feedback. Second, clear career ladders and pay scales align teacher objectives with corporate expectations, promoting professional growth and the adoption of more effective teaching techniques. Third, some allowances based on workload and local cost of living remove material constraints that have historically forced teachers to substitute excellent teaching with coping strategies. Fourth, by ensuring that resources are being used to enhance learning, anti-corruption initiatives, and payroll integrity strengthen educators’ trust in the system is strengthened. Furthermore, the impact of compensation is increased by non-monetary supports such as mentorship networks, organized professional development, and excellent supervision, which give teachers the framework they need to turn financial incentives into advantages in the classroom. A combination of classroom process indicators and student performance data is needed to track learning outcomes. The frequency of formative assessments, evidence-based teaching methods, and student engagement metrics are examples of process measurements that should be used in conjunction with core indicators, such as subject-specific outcomes and standardized test pass rates. To monitor learning outcomes, a mix of student performance data and classroom process indicators is required. In addition to basic indicators like subject-specific outcomes and standardized test pass rates, process measurements like the frequency of formative assessments, evidence-based teaching strategies, and student engagement metrics should be included.

Also, District-level and school-level dashboards should monitor instructor and student attendance, dropout and repetition rates, and advancement to higher education levels. Standard administrative systems should be integrated with data collection to provide timeliness, data quality, and the ability to split data by district, school type (rural, per-urban, or urban), and resource envelope. Align pay changes with school-improvement planning: rather than existing independently, remuneration should be incorporated into targeted professional development programs, leadership capacity building, and school-level improvement plans. This alignment ensures pay increases that support pedagogical modernity and effective classroom management. Invest in scalable professional development to finance mentorship, training in evidence-based pedagogy, and collaborative professional learning communities that are timed to coincide with pay milestones and support sustained improvements in teaching methods. Prioritize equality while creating a phased implementation plan that prioritizes underserved rural and remote districts in order to stop learning gaps from widening during the transition. High-poverty and high-need contexts should be prioritized in phased plans, supported by targeted allowances and better working conditions. Establish robust payroll governance, prompt compensation schedule disclosure, and easily accessible grievance procedures to increase transparency and accountability. To build community and teacher trust, make incentive payouts and disbursement performance publicly available. Manage expectations and communications by developing a well-defined communications strategy that specifies the timeline, the expected trajectory of educational achievements, and the rationale behind any modifications. During gradual rollouts, transparency on limitations and trade-offs contributes to the preservation of trust. Integrate with larger school reform projects: make sure that governance and compensation reforms, which include resource provisioning, leadership development, supervision quality, and performance-informed support, are consistent.

Policy recommendations

The remuneration morale earning framework is converted into a comprehensive, workable set of policy proposals in this part. The recommendations, which are based on Social Exchange Theory (SET) and the empirical and contextual analysis covered in the preceding sections, are meant to be adaptable, scalable, and backed by data in Uganda’s fiscal and administrative context. They are designed to support iteration, monitoring, and learning, as well as to take into account district and regional variations and current budget cycles. The guidance stresses integrated policy ecosystems, rather than discrete, discrete activities, where governance, implementation management, non-monetary incentives, and remuneration design work together to provide long-term gains in student learning and teacher satisfaction. The recommendations are presented as an ongoing policy journey rather than a one-time reform in order to maximize impact. They support a staged, data-driven rollout that improves institutional memory and capacity to maintain improvements, while giving priority to districts and schools with the biggest gaps. Transparency, accountability, and participatory design, which involves teachers, school administrators, local communities, district officials, and national stakeholders, are among the strategy’s fundamental principles. To ensure that money alone does not drive outcomes but rather serves as an enabling condition for professional growth and instructional excellence, the goal is to create a compensation architecture that is equitable, predictable, in line with workload and living expenses, and integrated with excellent non-monetary supports. By suggesting budgeting, governance, and sequencing methods that are workable within public sector regulations and budgeting cycles and provide observable improvements in teacher morale and student performance, the proposals also take into account Uganda’s practical realities and financial limitations.

The foundation of teacher morale and the caliber of education is a pay structure that is clear, dependable, and genuine. Establishing a legally anchored, scheduled, and auditable payroll system that guarantees fair allowance targeting, minimizes delays, and establishes compensation paths should be the strategy’s top priority. To ensure monthly payments on a designated date with built-in escalation for deviations, payroll schedules should be standardized with legally binding disbursement windows and automatic reconciliation processes at the regional and district levels.

The distribution performance should also be made publicly available to promote accountability and confidence. At the district level, a thorough pay ladder that outlines the routes for advancement, the credentials required for each rung, the performance requirements linked to advancement, and reasonable timelines for teachers should be promoted. This hierarchy ought to be in line with a systematic framework for professional development that ties compensation to the growth and application of teaching abilities and guarantees that promotions are determined by competency and performance as well as time. Clear pathways for promotion can lessen misunderstandings, ease irritation, and match teacher goals with school development goals.

In order to account for geographical differences in housing, transportation, workload, and cost of living, workable allowances must be properly adjusted. Based on objective factors like housing markets, workload metrics, and cost-of-living indices, the policy should establish geographically tailored allowance schedules. Formal review procedures should be carried out at least once a year or every two years. In order for educators to plan for changes and make the required preparations, this framework should guarantee that housing allowances, rural hardship allowances, transportation subsidies, and any other allowances are visible, auditable, and time-bound. Implementing anti-corruption measures, such as independent payroll audits, whistleblower channels, and publicly available dashboards that provide an overview of disbursement performance and any irregularities found, is necessary to increase payroll integrity. Regularly monitoring personnel records, especially those pertaining to appointments, departures, transfers, and terminations, is another way to prevent leaks and ghost workers. An observably fair and efficient payroll system with distinct lines of accountability and grievance procedures is the aim. To guarantee that pay reforms are integrated into larger school-improvement initiatives, a strong governance framework must be put in place in addition to monetary improvements. This means improving relations between MoES, the Ministry of Public Service, and the Ministry of Finance to better coordinate policy creation, budget planning, payroll administration, and sector-wide reforms.

The governance architecture should explicitly specify roles, due dates, and performance indicators for reporting, payroll administration, and allowance distribution. It should also establish cross-ministerial working groups, cooperative monitoring systems, and standard operating procedures for processing payroll so that it can monitor progress, spot bottlenecks, and adjust policy in response to insights gleaned from data. Lessons learned from pilot districts should be incorporated into the reforms to guarantee that regional peculiarities are maintained throughout the nationwide rollout. Instead of functioning independently, a cohesive Professional Development (PD) structure ought to be created to support compensation milestones. Priority domains that represent inclusive teaching methods, classroom management, assessment literacy, and curriculum priorities should be specified in the framework. Professional learning communities (PLCs) at the school and cluster levels should be formalized with protected time, clear agendas, and facilitation standards. Mentorship programs should pair early-career teachers with experienced practitioners, with explicit goals, structured feedback loops, and time allowances to support classroom improvement. Supervisory practices must emphasize constructive feedback, evidence-based coaching, and alignment with school-improvement plans, rather than punitive appraisal. Career progression should be reimagined to integrate non-monetary outputs with financial recognition. Leadership and senior specialist roles should be contingent on demonstrable instructional impact, leadership competencies, and successful completion of PD milestones. This alignment ensures that progression signals both pedagogical and organizational contributions, reinforcing the theory that support and recognition co-create motivation. One of the most important levers for instructional effectiveness is working circumstances. ICT-enabled instruction, dependable utilities, secure and functional classrooms, and access to educational materials should all receive funding. Simplifying administrative duties will free up more time for teachers to focus on pedagogy, assessment, and student support. The policy should also include special incentives for rural and underserved schools to reduce disparities in access to professional development, mentoring, and quality supervision.

Conclusion

This policy brief offers a method grounded in theory to enhance teacher satisfaction and student performance in Uganda’s government secondary schools through integrated remuneration design, non-monetary incentives, governance reform, and gradual implementation. The Social Exchange Theory (SET), on which the framework is based, maintains that financial support creates a positive feedback loop that includes improved learning outcomes, higher student engagement, teacher morale and trust, and more consistent instructional quality when combined with targeted allowances, timely disbursement, credible career advancement, and strong non-monetary supports.

The most successful compensation reforms are those that are in line with Uganda’s regional and district diversity, governance coherence across ministries, and school-improvement ecosystems. The primary argument is that an integrated payment environment that ensures pay equity and predictability, transparent progression tracks, and regionally adjusted allowances is insufficient to improve learning outcomes on its own. Transformative effects arise when monetary reforms are coupled with a robust variety of non-monetary supports, including improved working conditions, targeted mentoring, encouraging supervision, and top-notch professional development. Teachers are more likely to put in extra effort, use evidence-based methods, and participate in ongoing learning that results in better classrooms when they believe that their pay is reasonable, timely, and linked to significant professional development. Stronger student participation, improved formative evaluation, and increased achievement in line with national education goals and sustainable development targets result from this. The suggested policy design places a strong emphasis on a data-driven, staggered, regionally distinct deployment with clear governance and accountability frameworks. Districts with high needs and persistent payroll delays should be given priority in order to establish credibility, produce early effect demonstrations, and generate momentum for scale-up.

In order to synchronize policy development, budget planning, and payroll management, governance should help the Ministry of Education and Sports, the Ministry of Public Service, and the Ministry of Finance to formally coordinate. Teachers, school administrators, local communities, and district authorities are all invited to participate in the creation, monitoring, and evaluation of reforms through an open and transparent process.

Sustaining reforms, upholding trust, and guaranteeing responsiveness to ground realities all depend on this participation. A key component of the approach is equity, since the advantages of higher pay and non-monetary assistance are most apparent in rural and underprivileged regions. The gradual deployment should prioritize these areas to address disparities in access to development opportunities and working conditions. The architecture allows for regional customisation to take into consideration differences in workload, cost of living, and resource constraints by eschewing a one-size-fits-all approach. Combining uniform accountability with regional differentiation aims to improve governance, reduce leakage, and boost financial efficiency without sacrificing learning outcomes.

Global policy contributions include showing how public education compensation plans can be reorganized to improve teacher retention, student learning, and motivation in resource-constrained settings. Uganda’s observations regarding salary transparency, payment punctuality, and the interaction between monetary and non-monetary incentives can be applied to other Sub-Saharan contexts addressing similar fiscal and structural difficulties. The phased implementation framework’s focus on data-driven adjustment loops enables ongoing monitoring, evaluation, and reform improvement, complementing contemporary policy-learning and adaptive governance approaches. Overall, the pathway seeks to strike a compromise between financial realities and educational objectives by providing a holistic compensation reform that optimizes teacher potential, strengthens school-improvement ecosystems, and yields measurable learning gains. If these reforms are faithfully implemented, closely monitored, and inclusively governed, they have the potential to improve student outcomes, teacher morale, and instructional quality in Uganda over the long run. As countries in Sub-Saharan Africa debate viability, equity, and efficiency in public education, they are also pertinent.

Declaration

Consent for publication

All authors agreed to the publication of this manuscript.