1
COMMENTS
ON KEY STATISTICS
Back to Abstract 2004
1.1
Schools
1.1.1
Schools ownership, location, and gender status
Since
introduction of UPE policy in 1997, government has steadily increased its share
of primary schools through construction of new
schools using the Schools Facilities Grant (SFG) scheme as well as extending
grant aid to community and private schools.
Although
the MoES had 15,339 primary schools on the schools
register, only 13,371 (87%) schools responded to the 2004 school census and out
of those that responded, the majority (81.3%) were government schools, 11.4%
were private schools, 7.0% were community schools, and 0.3% did not indicate
which category they belonged to.
Government owned primary schools Vs other
forms of ownership
Unlike the case for primary schools, government has the smaller
share in non-formal institutions, post-primary institutions, secondary schools,
and tertiary institutions. Results from figure 2 show that although there are
no government pre-primary schools but some pre-primary schools are affiliated
to government primary schools. According to the 2004 school census, there were
1,630 pre-primary schools and 538 (55%) schools responded. Out of the total number of
pre-primary schools that responded in the whole country, 36% were affiliated to
government aided primary schools. The majority were (46%) privately owned and
15% were community schools. In case of secondary schools, there were 3,645
schools on the schools register and only 1,969 (54%) responded. Those that
responded were evenly distributed between government (38.8%), private (59.7%),
and community (1.52%) ownership.
Considering other school
attributes, the majority of primary (81.3%) and secondary (54.2%) schools are
located in rural areas. In terms of gender distribution, 99.1% of primary
schools and 92.5% of secondary schools are co-educational.
1.1.2
Distances from DEOs office and schools of similar characteristics
In
terms of distance between the DEOs office and schools, 81.3% of primary schools
were within a radius of 50kms, 18.1% were in a distance of more than 50kms and
less than 1% did not report their proximities in relation to DEOs’ offices. For secondary schools the pattern was 70.9%
of the schools were within a radius of 30kms while 29.1% of schools were within
a radius of more than 30kms respectively. This pattern shows that the DEOs
office has to be well facilitated (transport and man-power) for it to reach out
and do effective schools inspection because many of the schools are very far.
It even becomes worse for head teachers to go to district offices when they are
physically required at the DEOs office.
Considering
distances between schools of similar levels, at national level 89.8% of primary
schools were within a radius of 5kms of another primary school and 9.7% were
within a distance of more than 5kms from a similar school. Most of the primary
schools (93.5%) are day schools and are rural (81.3%) based which means most of
the kids travel a total of utmost 5kms to and from school every day. A similar
pattern exists for secondary schools i.e. 56.3% were day schools, yet 74.1% and
25.9% of secondary schools were within radii of 5kms and more than 5kms from
one another respectively. There is also a big number
of students in secondary schools that travel long distances to school every day
since 33.9% of secondary schools were partly boarding.
1.2
Enrolments
1.2.1
Enrolment in Gov’t primary schools
There has been a
steady increase in enrolment in primary schools over the years 2000, 2001,
2002, and 2003. During this period enrolment levels in all primary schools were
at 6,559,013, 6,900,916 7,354,153,
7,633,314 respectively. A slight reduction to 7,377,292 was recorded in respect
of the year 2004. However, over the same period the proportion of enrolment in
government-aided primary schools steadily rose from 82% in 2000 to 89% in 2002
and to 91% in 2004. The figure below shows
that the rate of increase in enrolment in Government-aided primary schools is
more than that of overall enrolment in all primary
Schools. The percentage
distribution of pupils in government, private and community schools was 91%,
5%, and 4% respectively.
1.2.2
Enrolment by gender and grade
Considering enrolment by gender and grade, 50.6% of total
enrolments in all schools were boys, 49.4% were girls, and the bulk of pupils were
in the lower classes especially primary one.
In
general the percentage distribution of pupils by class was 25% for Primary 1
(P1), 16% for Primary 2 (P2), 16% for Primary 3 (P3), 14% for Primary 4 (P4),
13% for Primary 5 (P5), 10% for Primary 6 (P6) and 6% for Primary 7 (P7). There
are drastic declines in enrolment between P1 & P2 and P6 & P7.
Out of the total enrolment,
primary one (P1) had the majority share of 25% (1,837,277 pupils) with 1,594,055 as new entrants.
Results from figure 4 showed that
there was a sharp drop from primary one to primary two and thereafter a gradual
drop in enrolment from lower to higher classes. This is an indication that a
significant number of pupils abandon school before completing primary seven.
However, for all classes there isn’t a significant difference between the
number of boys and girls abandoning school.
The reported reasons for abandoning schools are lack of Interest (46%), family
responsibilities (15%), sickness (12%), employment (4%), marriage (4%), school
fees (3%), pregnancy (2%), dismissed (1%), and others (13%).
1.2.3
Pupils with enough seating space
Results
from figure 5 shows that lower classes had lower percentages of pupils with
adequate seating space.
1.2.4
Enrolment in Primary seven (P7)
The
age distribution of pupils in P7 is such that about 48% of pupils complete primary
at the age of 13 years and below. However, a bigger percentage (52%) complete
primary when they are 14 or more years old. This shows that many pupils still
join primary one when they are older than 6 years or some of them repeated some
classes, or dropped out of school at some stage and came back later on.
1.2.5
Enrolment in secondary schools (S1-S6)
Total
enrolment in secondary schools was 697,507 with a gender imbalance of 55:45% in
favour of boys. The percentage distribution of students across grades was 26%,
23%, 20%, 17%, 8%, and 7% for S1, S2, S3, S4, S5, and S6 respectively. Like
primary schools, students in secondary schools are more concentrated in lower
grades. Out of the total enrolment, 180,067 were in senior one with 99% (178,266) as new entrants.
Dropouts are also more in the lower classes i.e. S1 (29%), S2 (29%), S3 (24%),
S4 (19%), S5 (3%), and S6 (3%). Most of
students (62%) who dropped out of secondary schools were reported to have had
problems with schools fees. Pregnancies and marriages combined accounted for
11% of dropouts. Overall there were no significant repetitions of classes. Only
2% of total enrolments were reported to be repeating.
1.3
Teachers
1.3.1
Primary school teachers
By
2004 there were 147,291 schoolteachers in all primary schools and most of them 89,805 (62%)
being Grade IIIs with a 59:41 percentage ratio of
male to female teachers.
Between 2000 and 2004 the percentage of
Grade III teachers dropped from 64% to 62% and the drop favoured licensed
teachers i.e. more of newly recruited teachers were unqualified (licensed)
compared to professionally qualified teachers.
1.3.2
Secondary school teachers
During
2004, there were 37,313 teachers in service in secondary schools of which 78%
were males and 22% females.
COMMENTS ON
KEY INDICATORS FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS
1.4
Efficiency
indicators
Efficiency indicators include
Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR), Pupil Classroom Ratio (PCR) and Pupil Textbook Ratio
(PBR). Efficiency indicators provide a picture on the learning/teaching
classroom environment in terms of overcrowding, pupil–teacher contact, and
availability of learning/teaching materials. For all these indicators, a lower
value leads to reduced levels of overcrowding or reduced competition for
classroom resources and implies better learning conditions. Over the period
2000-2004 there was a steady decrease in all efficiency indicators, which shows
an improvement in the efficiency of the education system.
1.4.1
Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) – Primary Gov’t
schools
PTR gives an indication of contact between
pupils and teachers in a classroom. If it is lower, then there are high chances
of contact between a teacher and pupils and teachers will have enough time to
check homework and class work. In other words the lower the PTR the better.
Although the targeted PTR for 2004 was 52 in government schools, 53 was the
value actually realized for Gov’t schools and 50 for all schools.
At district level PTR varied greatly from
30 to 82 with
Wakiso (33) and
Mayuge (58), Kayunga
(50), and Kyenjojo (61) are new districts and became
operational in 2001 and were probably among the ten worst performing districts
perhaps because they inherited the less developed and harder to reach areas of
their parent districts of Mukono and Kabarore respectively. Districts of Gulu (61), Kitgum (71), and Pader (82) were among the ten worst districts because of
insecurity caused by prolonged rebel activities in the northern region and due
to the fact that teachers do not want to be deployed in those districts. Nakapiripirit also a new district ranked last in respect of
PTR due to insecurity caused by the Karamajong
warriors.
1.4.2
Pupil to Classroom Ratio (PCR) – Gov’t schools
Target
PCR for 2004 was 90 in government schools. However, a PCR of 84 was actually
realized in Gov’t schools and 79 in all schools. At district level, PCR varied
from 33 to 185. Kalangala district had the lowest
(best) PCR of 33 and it was the only district whose PCR was less than 40.
1.5
Access indicators
These measure a proportion of
pupils attending school compared to school going children in the population.
They include Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER), Net Enrolment Ratio (NER), Gross
Intake Ratio (GIR), and Net Intake ration (NIR). Because of population
dynamics, they are usually very difficult to determine accurately. In case of
1.5.1
Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER)
The GER at primary level is, regardless of age, a proportion of all pupils in primary schools (P1- P7) to the total numbers of children aged 6-12 years in the population. GER in all schools in 2004 was at 104.4%. This implies that there are kids who are outside the 6-12 age bracket in school. This is possible because there are some kids who join primary one when they are not yet 6 years old and others although still in primary school, are actually more than 12 years old because they repeated some classes or joined primary one when the