o
The information included in this publication is part of the data
gathered from the Annual School Census 2005 exercise conducted in March
2005 for the Pre-primary, Primary, Secondary, Post-primary, Tertiary and
Non-formal sub-sectors.
o
I wish to thank all stakeholders who have played various roles in making
the publication of this abstract a reality. Special thanks go the members of Education Funding Agencies
Group (EFAG) who apart from contributing financially also contribute
technically in form of quality assurance.
My thanks also go to our field officers, the District Education
Officers/Inspectors, Head teachers and the ministry technical team on
whose shoulders the burden of quality and timeliness of data lie.
o
It is worth noting that the comments you make on this abstract will
improve our subsequent publications. Further the co-operation from all the
stakeholders as established in the past will help nurture and improve
further our Education Management Information System (EMIS).
o
If you require further information please contact
The Commissioner
Education Planning
Ministry of Education and Sports
P.O.Box 7063 Kampala
E-mails: epd@education.go.ug
statistics@education.go.ug
Website: www.education.go.ug
Telephones: 256 41 258629/ Gen. Lines: 256 41 234451-5;
256 41 345945
Faxes:
256 41 232104/345945/233357.
F.
X. Lubanga.
PERMANENT SECRETARY
MINISTRY
OF EDUCATION AND SPORTS
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 15,828 primary schools on the schools register, only 13,576
(80%) schools responded to the 2005 school census and out of those that
responded, the majority (83.3%) were government schools, 11.1% were
private schools, 5.3% 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 were affiliated to government primary schools.
According to the 2005 school census, there were 405 (18%)
pre-primary
schools that
responded. Out of the total number of pre-primary schools that responded
in the whole country, 7% were affiliated to government aided primary
schools. The majority were (73%) privately owned and 20% were community
schools. In case of secondary schools, there were 3,730 schools on the
schools register and only 1,961 (53%) responded. Those that responded were
evenly distributed between government (41.3%), private (46.1%), and
community (12.7%) ownership.
Considering
other school attributes, the majority of primary (81.8%) and secondary
(57.2%) schools are located in rural areas. In terms of gender
distribution, 99.4% of primary schools and 92.2% of secondary schools are
co-educational.
In
terms of distance between the DEOs office and schools, 81.1% of primary
schools were within a radius of 50kms, 18.4% 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 71% of the
schools were within a radius of 30kms while 29% 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 of a sizeable number
of schools that were very far to reach. 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 91% of
primary schools were within a radius of 5kms of another primary school
contrary to the 9% schools who were within a distance of more than 5kms
from a similar neighbouring school. Most of the primary schools (93%) were
day schools and rural based (81.3%) schools, which meant that the majority
of kids did travel a total of utmost 5kms to and from school every day. A
similar pattern exists for secondary schools i.e. 57% were day schools,
yet 75% and 25% 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% of secondary schools were partly boarding.
There has
been a steady increase in enrolment in primary schools over the years
2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 with absolute enrolment figures of 6,559,013,
6,900,916 7,354,153 and 7,633,314 reduced to 7,377,292 and 7,223,879 in
2004 and 2005 respectively. 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 24% for Primary
1 (P1), 16% for Primary 2 (P2), 16% for Primary 3 (P3), 14% for Primary 4
(P4), 13% for Primary 5 (P5), 11% for Primary 6 (P6) and 7% for Primary 7
(P7). There are drastic declines in enrolment between P1 & P2 and P6
& P7 and these were attributed to high repetition rates caused by
under age children in primary 1 and pupils in pre-candidate class not
deemed fit to sit for end of primary cycle examinations.
Out of the
total enrolment, primary one (P1) had the majority share of 24% (1,712,420 pupils) with 1,485,674
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
wasn’t a significant difference between the number of boys and girls
abandoning school. The
reported reasons for abandoning schools were lack
of Interest (46%), family responsibilities (15%), sickness (12%),
employment (4%), marriage (4%), school fees (3%), pregnancy (2%), dismissed
(1%), and others (13%).
Results
from figure 5 show that lower classes had lower percentages of pupils with
adequate seating space.
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 13 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.
Total
enrolment in secondary schools was 728,562 with a gender imbalance of
55:45% in favour of boys. The percentage distribution of students across
grades was 25%, 23%, 20%, 18%, 7%, and 7% for S1, S2, S3, S4, S5, and S6
respectively. Just like primary schools, students in secondary schools are
more concentrated in lower grades like secondary 1. Out of the total
enrolment, 178,806 were in senior one with 96% (171,279) as new entrants. Dropouts were also more realised 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.
By
2005 there were 144,832 schoolteachers in all primary schools and most of them 95,353 (66%)
having a qualification of Grade IIIs with a 56:44 percentage ratio of male
to female teachers.
Between 2000 and 2005 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.
1.2.7
Secondary school teachers
During
2005, there were 37,607 teachers in service in secondary schools of which
78% were males and 22% females.
COMMENTS ON KEY INDICATORS FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS
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 2000-2005 there was a steady
decrease in all efficiency indicators, which shows an improvement in the
efficiency of the education system.
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 2005 was
52 in all schools, 53 was the value actually realized for Gov’t schools
and 50 for all schools.
At district level PTR varied
greatly from 29 to 90 with Kampala (29), Wakiso (33), Kalangala (33),
Kapchorwa (38) and Nakasongola (39) having the lowest (best) values and
districts of Kitgum (85) and Pader (90) at the bottom of the list.
Kalangala district composed
of islands in Lake Victoria had a relatively low PTR because it has the
lowest population and enrolment. It’s also true that Rakai district with
Pupil Teacher Ratio of 40 was among the best districts because since 1986
it was used as a pilot district for many projects (i.e. a lot of donor and
NGOs presence), which created an enabling school environment for both
pupils and teachers.
Wakiso (33) and Kampala (29)
also have good PTR values because they are predominantly urban or peri-urban
places and tend to attract and retain more teachers compared to other
districts.
Mayuge (55),
Kayunga (52), and Kyenjojo (59) 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 Kitgum (85), and Pader (90) 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 among the last in respect of PTR due to insecurity caused
by the Karamajong warriors.
Target
PCR for 2005 was 80 in government schools. However, a PCR of 79 was
actually realized in Gov’t schools and 74 in all schools. At district
level, PCR varied from 29 to 137. Kalangala district had the lowest (best)
PCR of 29 and it was the only district whose PCR was less than 40. Kampala
(60) and Wakiso (59) were among the 50 districts with a PCR less than 100
showing an improved performance in PCR. Districts of Pader, Arua, Mayuge,
Kitgum, Apac, Iganga and Yumbe ranked last with PCRs of 137, 119, 106,
103, 102 and 101 respectively.
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 Uganda they have been on the high side
due to a combination of problems in enrolment and low population
projection estimates. However, 2005-population census final results
released were more precise these were used to compute the access
indicators for 2005. Nationally the GER was 107.77, NER at 93.01, GIR at
152.84 and NIR at 66.82.
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 2005 was at 107.77%. This implies that
there were kids who were outside the 6-12 age bracket in school. This was
possible because some kids joined primary one when they are not yet 6
years old and others although still in primary school, were actually more
than 12 years old because they repeated some classes or joined primary one
when they were older than 6 years. Considering boys and girls separately,
the GER for boys (108.77%) was slightly higher than that of girls
(106.76%) i.e. there were more boys attending primary schools compared to
boys aged 6-12 in the population than were girls.
At lower
levels (districts) GER varied from 23.05% to 179.49%. Kotido had the
lowest (23.05%) value followed by Nakapiripirit at 43.44%. Wakiso with a
GER of 73.95% was also among 19 districts whose GER was less than 100%.
Such low values of GER that were less than 70% imply that many pupils in
those districts tend to join primary one either earlier than 6 years or
after they are 7 years of age.
The GIR for
primary schools is a proportion of children in primary one to the total
number of children aged 6 years in the population. GIR in all schools was
at 152.4%. Since the percentage was more than 100%, it shows there were
some kids that joined primary one when they were less than 6 years old
and/or more than 6 years. The GIR fluctuated between 59.21% (Kotido) and
279.29% (Ssembabule) districts.
Schools
in the Registry by Category s
