According to the Constitution of Uganda, Article 6, English is the official language and Swahili is the second official language. However, any other language could be used as a medium of instruction in schools or other educational institutions. The Ugandan education policy requires that the mother tongue be used as the language of instruction for the first three years, with English taught as a subject and in the 4th grade English is adopted as the language of instruction dropping the use of mother tongue altogether.

Access to primary education is recognized for refugees with the standard of treatment being the same treatment as nationals as per Section 32(1) of the Refugees Act. Ugandan nationals have the right of access to Education in the language they understand for the purpose of the first three years of primary education; and hence refugees should learn in their mother tongue the first three years of primary education. In practice, whilst the South Sudanese primary curriculum is in English and has some similarities to the Uganda primary curriculum, for the refugees from Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo and other Francophone countries needs to adjust to the English curriculum.

The Education Response Plan (ERP), prepared by the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) of Uganda, which is serving as a policy document in addressing the educational issues of refugee and host communities hosting refugees, underscores the relevance of, language bridging courses, community involvement in schools and engagement of bi-lingual teacher assistants in classrooms as a good strategy in the multilinguistic setting of refugee-hosting areas and of to mitigate the challenges and support inclusive education within the framework of the Ugandan education system. 
The Educational Response Plan (ERP) notes the need to urgently address the language barrier through an accelerated approach to re-train, register and license refugee teachers to significantly improve the number of teachers in schools in the refugee settlements in the hope and belief that more refugee teachers will also support children in lower grades to learn in their local language, as per Ugandan policy, although there is a real challenge with managing language of instruction issues within host community and settlement areas legislative, administrative or judicial purposes as Parliament may by law prescribe.