Education Service Commission E-recruitment System for Teachers in Uganda

By | August 31, 2021

The education sector is one of the most important sectors in the economy.

Apart from promoting knowledge and literacy, eradicating poverty, it employs thousands of Ugandans. With the recent technical progress, Uganda has started to witness major breakthroughs in the sector. As a result, the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), the Education Service Commission and Cremotin Management Consultants have teamed up to digitalize the recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff in Uganda.


The Education Service Commission is responsible for 68 percent of the public service in Uganda. Its mandate is to manage the recruitment, confirmation, promotion and disciplining of personnel. Last year alone, the Commission handled recruitment for 35,000 applicants.

For years, the Commission has had to manage these processes manually which evidently slowed down the hiring process. Labor-intensive paper-based methods often resulted into delays, high operational costs, fraud, misplacement of files, redundant data capturing, and feeble data analysis.

The new e-recruitment platform is developed to assist the Education Service Commission in improving their processes and it will in turn benefit all the stakeholders involved. The solution will automate processes like locating and developing the sources of the required number and type of employees (advertising), short-listing and identifying the prospective employee with required characteristics, arranging interviews with the selected candidates, conducting interviews and decision making. The digitalization of the recruitment process will strengthen data storage and management, reduce fraud and corruption, and minimize manual errors. The platform will also make the application process easier, faster and cost effective for applicants.


UNCDF supports this project as part of its global strategy of ‘leaving no one behind in the digital era’. The digitalization of the recruitment process will level the application process for vulnerable groups such as women and people with disabilities for whom it might be hard to travel long distances to hand in their application forms.

The developer of this platform, Cremotin Management Consultant, is running a 360 implementation model that focuses on system development, building and enhancing partnerships, training and capacity building and raising awareness. To kick-start the project, a baseline survey was conducted. The findings of this survey helped to understand the organizational nature and build-up of the Commission. The revealed constraints guided the project roadmap and system design and supported the basis for implementation.


Following the survey, numerous meetings were held with key government stakeholders. These collaborations and partnerships are very important for the sustainability of a project of this nature. Key players include National Information Technology Authority (NITA-U) the ICT regulator, Ministry of Education and Sports (MOES)-a beneficiary, Ministry of Finance-the funder and finally Education Service Commission-the user.

One of the main attributes of this platform is its scalability to the different user needs. More so, it is secure, inter-operational and can be linked to different government platforms. The system is user friendly, easy to navigate and thus takes into account the digital literacy of many of the applicants and end-users. Many of the applicants supported by the Commission are not digitally literate and do not have access to the necessary infrastructure needed to apply for positions online. To bridge this gap, digital hubs have been mapped out to support some of the applicants in hard to reach areas. The identified hubs are easy to reach, have the required infrastructure, skilled personnel, and fairly stable internet connectivity.


Following this launch, a training program will be rolled out. The training targets the applicants, users at the Commission, and digital hubs. The modules covered are practical, offer a great learning experience, and are easy to use. The training aims to develop the knowledge and skills of the applicants and staff so that they are better equipped to adapt to the modified recruitment platform.

Visit the platform here.