In 1950, Museveni started his formal education at a church sponsored alphabet school at Muyogo Church of Uganda and later joined Kyaamate girls’ school in 1952 during second term. This school was nicknamed Kyenkobe meaning the school of monkeys because all pupils in it were so young, the majority of the pupils were girls with only four boys.

In 1953 he joined Kyaamate boys’ school where he mostly enjoyed scripture class, in his book titled “Sowing The Mustard Seed” (second edition), the president recalls an incident during 1958 in primary six where a teacher got annoyed of him and sent him out of the class for some time. Having been invited back to class, Museveni made an insulting gesture known as okuhema in Runyankole (bearing the lower incisors as they bite the upper lip) and also pointing up his right thumb behind the teacher who was facing the other way not knowing that there was another teacher seated behind in class. This was an insult to the teacher, the young Museveni was heavily canned and given a punishment to go to the papyrus swamp and cut papyrus stems to make enclosures of the urinal area, he feared telling his father because he had a fighting character that would have caused a serious fight with a teacher that had canned him.

He passed his Primary Leaving Exams (PLE) at the end of 1958 and also passed an oral interview by Mr. Edward Cleaver the headteacher of Mbarara High School