The Theory Informed Education and Counseling Intervention for HIV-TB Treatment Adherence (TEACH) project aims to develop and evaluate a novel TB education and counseling (TEC) intervention for TB patients in Kampala, Uganda. In our first aim, we conducted a baseline cohort study to assess the effectiveness of standard TEC on patient knowledge, the retention of knowledge, and the association of this knowledge with adherence to TB medications. We found that TEC was often not standardized resulting in inconsistent knowledge acquisition. This was often due to the heavy burden placed on health workers as they were unable to devote the necessary time to individual patient's TEC.