Contents

Preface

Introduction

Caveats and Limitations to Primary and Secondary data

Definitions for Annual School Census data – Primary and Secondary Schools 

Number of Schools in the Registry by Category

Comments on Key Statistics

Reference tables

Selected tables

Preface 

o        The information included in this publication is part of the data gathered from the Annual School Census 2004 exercise conducted in March 2004 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                                                                              Back

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

Introduction 

A          BACKGROUND           

The annual education census exercise allows the Ministry of Education and Sports to collect all the necessary information about education in Uganda. This information is used as an input to the planning and monitoring of the provision of quality and relevant education to Ugandans. It is intended that the census should address the information needs of all stakeholders. 

In its efforts to improve on the timeliness, accuracy reliability and availability of information to various users, the Ministry of Education and Sports, in 1999, embarked on the design and implementation of a sector Educational Management Information System (EMIS) in which the district would be the focal point. The Ministry contracted M/S AED/Africon to design and implement EMIS both by developing the necessary software and re-engineering practices and procedures. 

B          DATA GATHERING 

In February 2001 a workshop was conducted with District Education Officers, Chief Administrative Officers and Ministry officials as well as the Education Funding Agencies Group members and other categories of stakeholders. This workshop was, among other things, designed to determine their information needs. In addition, an assessment of the usefulness and relevance of existing data and reports was made. 

Following this model, questionnaires and instructional manuals for the census 2004 were designed and circulated for comments, and the comments were applied in the refinement of instrument development. District training workshops for the past three school census exercises have included direct participation of school head teachers to optimize the impact of training. Following training, the Questionnaires were then distributed to schools, accompanied by detailed sets of instructions manuals. These instructions cover all major definitions, the process, the responsible agents and the expected length of time for each major step. 

Several new features were added to the Annual Census 2004 as follows:                       Back

(i)                   Pre-labeled questionnaires (3 copies) for each school with a unique 6 digit EMIS school number-new schools not known from 2003 were assigned a unique number at data capture stage;

(ii)                 Formal tallies on the Census sheet for tracking length of time in transit;

(iii)                Summary totals for teachers and students – Quick Counts, available very soon after the questionnaires were returned to MOES;

(iv)                Individual enumeration of all teachers including any with links to Ministry of Public Service payroll code;

(v)                  Additional teacher information including skills, previous post, and pay grade;

(vi)                Control totals on all major information parts.

(vii)               A section on capture of school operation was retained to capture the progress of government participation in school management.

(viii)             Also the capture of classrooms’ data was based on completed classrooms, classrooms under construction and classrooms needed and classrooms in use as were the case in years 2003 and 2002.

C          METHODOLOGY 

In an effort to decentralize the data gathering, processing and utilization to districts District Education Officers, District Inspectors of Schools and Education Officers/Inspectors of Schools in charge of counties and school head teachers were intensively involved. Regional teams were dispatched to undertake intensive training in each district. This is part of the plan to decentralize EMIS through capacity building. This training: 

       (i)                   Improved the knowledge and appreciation of the exercise by all personnel,

(ii)                 Resulted in high quality training of head teachers,

(iii)                Allowed MOES to hand out the Annual Census 2004 documents directly to the head teachers in the presence of their DEOs and County Inspectors of Schools.

During the entire data collection exercise the Ministry of Education and Sports in collaboration with officers from the Internal Security Organization (ISO) was in charge of monitoring and supervision and verification nationally. 

District officials supervised and monitored the exercise in their districts, collated the completed questionnaires and returned them to the MOES. 

D          DATA PROCESSING 

Data entry was done by data entry clerks hired to specifically input data under the supervision of the Ministry of Education and Sports staff in close collaboration with the consultants. ED*ASSIST software was used to enter data.

During data entry only questionnaires without errors were entered and incorrectly filled questionnaires were either referred to respondents or edited by MOES staff. This was to ensure that the quality of entered data was high and to limit the time spent on data cleaning.

Caveats and Limitations to primary and secondary data 

1. The data presented in this publication does not reflect the total schools’ population. Responses to the census were received from pre-primary schools, primary schools, secondary schools, non-formal schools/institutions, post-primary institutions and tertiary institutions as indicated in the matrix below.

The following tables give an estimate of the total pupils in each district calculated using the response rate for that district. It is not possible to produce all of the tables included in this abstract on this basis, but these two will give a context to those making use of the data.

2. In many schools the census took place before enrolment of S5 pupils was complete. Consequently, the numbers of secondary students may be an underestimate of the actual total.

3. Some of the tables in the abstract present subsets of schools. Combining these will not necessarily give the totals shown in the summary table due to the incidence of unknown values. For example – combining the tables showing enrolment in government, private and community owned schools does not give the total enrolment, as some schools did not provide information about their ownership and hence are only included in the summary table.

4. The age data supplied may to a less extent have some misreporting since the primary source of data is the head teacher (Principal Respondent) who may not be very conversant with the correct ages of some of their pupils. In addition, age data records in most of the homes where pupils come from are very inadequately managed.

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5. The definitions on school location were structured in reference to facilities and geographical location. But in practise the characteristics appear different yet they qualify for different geographical location. Categorisation of locations by head teachers was difficult since the terms apply differently and are relative in meaning.

Definitions for Annual School Census data – Primary and Secondary Schools 

School Particulars 

Status of Operation of School– This is determined by who runs the school. This could be different from the Founding Body and the Funding Source.   In essence this option relates to that authority that has the biggest stake in the school management.

The ownership options are:

Government/ Government Grant-Aided – the government now owns the school or the school has received a grant from the government.

(Note: If a school was listed in 2003/2004 as Government owned, unless it formally converted, it should still be identified as a government school.)

Private (for profit) – a private for-profit group of people, an individual or institution owns the school.

Community (non-profit) (religious) – a community group of people, an individual or an institution without any profit making objectives owns the school. Religious groups that own schools fall into this category. 

Founding Body –This has a historical perspective and is not necessarily related to who, at the present, owns the land where the school is located.  It relates to the original founder of the School regardless its present ownership status. The founding body options are:

Government – the government founded the school

Religious – one of the following religious organisations founded the school::

Islamic

Church of Uganda (COU)

Catholic

Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) Church

Parents – parents (or the local community) founded the school

Entrepreneurs – the school was founded as a commercial venture

Others – this might include non-religious NGOs, religious bodies not included above. 

Funding Source – This variable is intended to address the degree of funding given by Government to the schools using the 3 categories stipulated below. There are three categories defined as:

Government-aided – the school depends entirely (fully) on government funding to cover its operational costs including the payment of teachers’ salaries, the purchase of instructional materials, the construction/maintenance of school buildings; etc.

Partly government-aided – the school does not depend entirely on government funding to cover its operational costs but receives some public funding or supplies. Government funding may not be the main source of funding.

Not government-aided - the school does not receive any government funding or supplies to cover its operational costs.  

School Type – This question relates to gender of pupils in the school. In other words, what is the gender distribution in schools? And there are 3 broad categories defined as:

Co-educational (Mixed) – the school admits boys and girls.

Boys only – the school admits boys only.

Girls only – the school admits girls only.

Day School/Boarding Type – This defines the type of accommodation provided by the school:

Day School – the school is used only for teaching purposes and not for boarding.

Partly boarding – the school provides boarding facilities for a limited number of students, for example, only for upper classes.

Full boarding – the school provides boarding facilities for all levels.

Registry Status – This records information of the school indicating the stage/Level of the official registration process with the Ministry of Education and Sports. And the categories are;

Registered – the school is officially registered with the MOES.

Licensed but not registered – the school is not fully officially registered but a license to operate the school has been obtained.

Not licensed – the school is neither officially registered nor licensed.  Schools that have begun the process or obtaining a licence are included in this category.

Grade of the school before UPE (1997) –This item deals with the historical perspective before UPE and does not reflect any subsequent changes or self-assessments. In otherwards it shows the grade by which school was originally classified before Universal Primary Education (UPE). Categories are:

Grade I

Grade II

Grade III

Grade IV

Ungraded  - this includes both schools which did not receive a grade and new schools opened since 1997.

Note:  However, this item is not reflected in the new adjusted questionnaire anymore. 

Distance to nearest school of the same level – This is measured in kilometres (km). It records the distance between two primary schools or two secondary schools nearest to each other. Note: The distance estimated is the one that has to be practically covered and not the imaginary distance. This scenario applies more so for those schools in hilly/mountainous areas where two schools closest to each other are separated by a hill or mountain. The options available to schools were:

Below 1 km

1 – 2 km

2.1 – 3 km

3.1 – 4 km

4.1 – 5 km

Above 5 km

Distance to the DEO’s main office – This measures the distance (in kilometres – km) between each school and the office of District Education Officer. Note: The distance estimated is the one that has to be practically covered and not the imaginary distance. The same approach as that of the previous question has to be applied when responding to this question. The options available to schools were:

Below 10 km

10 – 20 km

20.1 – 30 km

30.1 – 40 km

40.1 – 50 km

Above 50 km 

Number of inspections by DEO conducted last year- This records the number of visits which the school received from a District Education office during the last school year that resulted in an actual school inspection.  In this case, an inspection is commissioned when the District Education Officer delegates some one from their office to practically visit the school. Options given were:

None

One

Two

More than two 

Location - This records the characteristics of the area in which the school is located. The options are defined as:

Urban – the school is located in a highly built-up area where the population is highly concentrated. This area is generally characterized by the availability of services like electricity, piped water, tarmaced roads, and telephones.

Peri-urban - the school is located in an area that somewhat mirrors the characteristics of an urban area but to a lesser extent.  In this area, only some of the facilities found in urban areas exist; the population concentration is also moderate.

Rural - the school is located in an area that lacks most if not all the facilities/amenities found in the urban areas.  The population tends to be scattered. 

Founding year- this is defined as the year in which the school opened its doors for the first time to the public for admission of pupils/students.

Pupil information 

Enrolment is defined as those pupils who were admitted/re-admitted and fully recorded in the school’s Register at the beginning of the first term. It includes all those pupils whose names appear on the school register (including repeaters and those temporarily absent). 

Age is defined as the difference between the pupil’s date of birth and the date at the time of the Annual school Census in complete years. In otherwards the age recorded refers to the age of the pupil on first day of school in the 1^st term.  

Streams by class – Streams in simpler terms refer to the number of separate groups existing for each class. Streams are usually created because the size of enrolment exceeds either the classroom capacity, or the capacity/availability of a teacher.  A class would then be divided into two or more “streams” either in the same physical classroom or in a separate classroom.  For example, for P1 there might be P1a, P1b and P1c, that is, 3 streams for P1. 

Orphans – The number of children whose parents are dead.  Unlike the year 2002 data, the number of orphans captured for this year also included those pupils/children who had only one parent dead.   

Pupils with special learning needs - Pupils with special learning needs are those who might need specially trained teachers and /or teaching materials.  Such pupils are categorised by their main special learning need as follows:

Mentally retarded

Visually impaired

Hearing impaired

Physically impaired 

If a child has more than one handicap, then the type of impairment that is most prominent is considered by the school to be the main one that defines the category in which the child is placed. 

Repeaters – These are pupils who are in the same grade as they were in the previous year.  It also includes pupils who completed up to the first term of the same grade in the previous year but left school before the year ended and returned to the same grade in the following year.    

New entrants to P1– Pupils who have been admitted into P1 that year for the first time.  It also includes pupils who attended P1 in the previous year (at the same or a different school) but left the school before completing the first term. 

Pupils with adequate seating or writing space – This question captures pupils who DO have adequate seating and writing space. Adequate sitting and writing space means access to the official furniture requirements like desk and a chair. If a pupil has one or none of these, then they’re not accessing adequate seating and writing space. This is defined by example: if a desk is meant for 4 pupils (4-seater) and 6 pupils are squeezed into the desk, then only 4 pupils out of the 6 are accessing adequate seating and adequate writing space.

Transferred pupils into a school

Transfers in: Pupils who joined a school from another school during the previous academic year.  This category includes only known transfers by head teachers. 

Dropouts  – The number of pupils who were enrolled in a school during the previous academic year but left the school (dropped out) before the end of the school year.  It does not include pupils who transferred to another school.  Dropouts leave the school system for a variety of reasons, frequently going back to their villages and not attending a school.   Dropouts are categorised as follows (each pupil is included only once under their main reason for dropping out): 

Lack of interest – the pupil showed no interest in schoolwork.

Pregnancy – the girl left school because she was pregnant.

Marriage – the pupil left school after getting married.

Fees (unable to pay) – parents could not afford to pay school fees.

Job – the pupil had to work during school hours or work too far away to attend school.

Sickness – the pupil was too sick to continue to attend school.

Family responsibilities – pupil had to attend to family related responsibilities such as taking care of brothers and sisters or elders, and the sick, or help with farming responsibilities

Dismissed/Disobedience – the pupil was dismissed from the school due to disobedience or other discipline related reason.

Others reasons– any other reason not listed above.