Reviving the grappling Education Sector: What can be done?
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Date
2017
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Publisher
Economic Policy Research Centre
Abstract
This brief looks at the academic landscape in Uganda which is largely characterized by declining attainment and increasing dropout rates despite the government’s increased investment in the education sector. Statistics show that, Uganda attained its highest primary school completion rate of 63 percent in 2002, after which primary school completion rates have steadily fallen to about 56 percent in 2013. The brief points out that high levels of teacher absenteeism, insufficient funding, lack of infrastructure like class rooms, poor supervision and inspection as some of the leading causes of the falling completion rates. We make three recommends, one, reversing the policy that was passed in 2005 compelling schools to promote pupils irrespective of their performance. Two, rethinking the UPE funding that puts the responsibility of financing UPE squarely on the government. This has proved not to be economically viable given other competing priorities like infrastructure development, health, agriculture investment etc. A cost sharing model in which both parents and the government contribute to the funding of primary school education will reduce the funding constraint. With parents contributing to UPE, teachers can be paid a decent salary, more class
rooms and other infrastructure can be built which will lead to improvement school outcomes. Three, increasing supervision and Inspection will go a long in curbing teacher absenteeism leading to increased teacher pupil interaction and thus improving learning outcomes.