THE EFFICIENCY OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IN UGANDA
MARCH 2008
This paper was written by Donald Winkler (Consultant) and Lars Sondergaard (AFTP2) with the very generous assistance of the Ministry of Education and Sports, Government of Uganda, and the helpful guidance of Harriet Nannyonjo (Task Team Leader). James Habyarimana was responsible for conducting a school survey to gather information on the sources and uses of funds at the school level. Maria Shkaratan did much of the analysis of EMIS data. The Planning Department, MoES, generously facilitated the provision of information and data for analysis. Several organizations provided very helpful comments on an earlier draft of the report, including MoES, UNICEF, GTZ, DCI, and Irish Aid.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE EFFICIENCY OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IN UGANDA
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
A. INTRODUCTION
B. AN EFFICIENCY FRAMEWORK
C. EXTERNAL EFFICIENCY
D. INTERNAL EFFICIENCY OF PRIMARY EDUCATION
E. EFFICIENCY OF PRIMARY TEACHER EDUCATION
F. INTERNAL EFFICIENCY OF SECONDARY LEVEL EDUCATION.
G. INTERNAL EFFICIENCY OF TERTIARY LEVEL EDUCATION
H. NEXT STEPS
I. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
J. REFERENCES
K. ANNEXES
- Statistics
- School Grants
- Teacher Absenteeism
- Formula Funding
ABBREVIATIONS
BOGBoard of Governors
CCCoordinating Centers
CCTCoordinating Center Tutor
DEODistrict Education Office
DISDistrict Inspector of Schools
EMISAnnualSchool Census of MoES
ESAEducation Standard Agency
ESCEducation Service Commission
JSEJunior Secondary Education
MoESMinistry of Education and Sports
MoSPMinistry of Public Service
NAPENational Assessment of Progress in Education
NTCNationalTeachers College
PETSPublic Expenditure Tracking Survey
PLEPrimary Leaving Exam
PSCPublic Service Commission
PTAParent Teachers Association
PTCPrimaryTrainingCollege
SFGSchool Facilities Grant
SMCSchool Management Committee
SSESenior Secondary Education
TSCTeachers Service Commission
UBOSUganda Bureau of Statistics
UNEBUganda National Examinations Board
UPEUniversal Primary Education
UPPETUniversal Post Primary Education & Training
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND KEY ISSUES
This is a study of the efficiency of Uganda’s public education system. Since this type of study is relatively new for Ugandan education, the study begins by defining the basic concepts, terminology, and methods for analyzing efficiency.
The scope of the education sector—from pre-primary through university post-graduate; it’s magnitude—representing over 7 percent of GDP; the lack of basic financial and resource information for some sub-sectors; and the limited time and resources available for carrying out this study has resulted in some sub-sectors receiving more attention than others. In particular, given the lack of any recent cost or efficiency analysis of primary education, and the fact that this sub-sector absorbs almost two-thirds the government’s education expenditure, special emphasis was put on primary education. On the other hand, some sub-sectors—BTVET and teacher training, for example—have not received much attention, mainly due to the lack of data and the need to carry out original surveys to obtain the information that would have been required to analyze these relatively small sub-sectors. In addition, since recurrent expenditures represent more than 95 percent of the Government’s education budget, this study focuses on recurrent expenditures, although the future growth of enrollments and school infrastructure argues for a subsequent, separate analysis of the efficiency of development spending.
Uganda is very fortunate to have a large number of studies and evaluations that have been carried out in the education sector over the past decade. In addition, Uganda has rich data bases that provide much of the information required for the analysis of education efficiency—census data, household surveys, demographic and health surveys, service delivery surveys, and an Education Management Information System [EMIS] whose quality has been significantly improved in recent years. What Uganda lacks is the kind of finance, expenditure, and resource information required for analyzing efficiency. Hence, this study carried out a rapid unit cost survey of 180 public and private primary schools in six districts across three regions to provide this information[1]. While the survey is not nationally representative, it is as least representative of those six districts, which collectively reflect much of the nation.[2]
Issue: Cost and expenditure information is essential for monitoring the efficiency of Government spending. A nationally representative survey of expenditures, finance, resources, and outcomes at the primary and secondary school levels, including BTVET secondary level schools, would help provide the information needed for assessing efficiency. The MoES could contract a firm to carry out such a survey and provide cost and efficiency indicators.
FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This study has generated a large number of findings and recommendations, as well as a number of areas where additional information needs to be gathered in order to improve the analysis. The findings and recommendations are summarized below, followed by a discussion of the highest priority actions in the sector for improving efficiency.
This study documents the magnitude and extent of the leakage and misuse of educational resources. When possible, it identifies the principal causes of inefficiencies. However, in general, further research is needed in order to pinpoint causes and thus identify cost-effective solutions. For example, the study documents the problem of an inequitable and inefficient assignment of teachers across districts and schools. Determining the multiple reasons for poor deployment and developing programmatic and policy options for treating those reasons is beyond the scope of this work and requires a study of its own.
External Efficiency.
Uganda has done an admirable job of increasing access to primary education over the past decade. However, increased access has come at the expense of the quality of instruction. International evidence generally shows that improvements in quality—in terms of student knowledge--are more strongly related to economic growth than are improvements in access. Uganda needs to make a very serious effort to improve qualityat all levels, while maintaining its impressive accomplishments with respect to coverage. Improvements in internal efficiency can help Uganda achieve both quality and quantity.
Issue: In terms of facilitating economic growth, improvements in quality—at all levels of education but especially in lower primary—are likely to have a high payoff. A careful assessment of the costs and benefits of raising quality at the lower primary level versus raising access at the post-primary level would help guide MoES resource allocation.
Internal Efficiency of Primary Education.
The internal efficiency of primary education is low. There are four principal sources of inefficiency. The first is the leakage of resources between the central government and the school through ghost teachers, misuse of UPE grants to district governments, etc. The second is the leakage of resources within the school, mainly attributable to high rates of student, teacher, and headmaster absenteeism. The third is the deployment of teachers both across and within districts, which appears to be unrelated to measures of need. The fourth is the allocation of resources within government schools, where class sizes are largest in the early grades and smallest in the later grades. While it is difficult to precisely quantify the overall magnitude of inefficiency, this study calculates that at least one-third of the expenditures on primary education are wasted or used inefficiently. However, it’s important to note that several types of leakage—ghost teachers, UPE capitation grants, and teacher absenteeism--have all decreased over time.[3]
Teachers are the most valuable resource in improving educational outcomes. Uganda’s main efficiency problem is the poor utilization of its teaching staff. Three pieces of evidence to support this conclusion. First, over three-quarters of teachers are not in class teaching when unannounced school visits are conducted, and many of them are not even at work. Second, across districts, teachers are not deployed to the regions where there is greatest need for them. [see Figure D2 in the paper]. Third, within schools, teachers are not being assigned in such a way that class sizes across grades are the smallest possible: rather, the early grades [P1-P3] have large class sizes, and the the later grades [P4-P7] have much smaller class sizes [see Figure D9].
High levels of teacher, headmaster, and student absenteeism is the most important source of leakage at the school level. The magnitude of teacher absenteeism, in particular, is so large that reducing it should be a principal focus of Government efforts to improve efficiency in primary education. Since Government actions to reduce absenteeism are relatively recent, they may not have yet had much impact. [See annex 3 for analysis of the determinants of teacher absenteeism.] This report uses an internationally recognized methodology to measure absenteeism and presents an option of policy measures to reduce absenteeism.
Issue: In Uganda, a 20 percent reduction in teacher absenteeism alone would be the equivalent of hiring 5,000 more teachers (at a cost of Ush 12 bn). Policy measures to reduce teacher, headmaster, and student absenteeism could thus have a very high payoff. A careful assessment of the costs and benefits of specific policy measures would be useful to guide MoES policies to reduce absenteeism.
Government teachers are not deployed in sufficient numbers to the neediest districts,where their presence is likely to have the biggest impact on improving educational outcomes. Analyzing EMIS [Education Management Information System] data, the deployment of government-paid teachers across districts is perverse, with student teacher ratios in government schools being the highest in the poorest districts. [See Figure D3] . In addition, there is no relation between the current teacher deployment and measures of educational outcomes[4].
Issue: Since the MoPS already has an explicit rule for the deployment of teachers across districts, it would be useful to know why the actual deployment differs. The district teacher service commissions should establish and implement a transparent, explicit rule for the deployment of teachers across schools within districts and establish procedures to regularly monitor deployment. Since much of the poor deployment of teachers appears to be linked to teacher transfers, consideration might be given to grant schools rights over teacher reassignments to prevent the movement of teachers from unpopular to popular schools without a replacement satisfactory to the school.
Issue: A more radical proposal would eliminate district deployment of teachers altogether. Each school would be given an annual formula-driven budget determined by student enrollments and special needs and would recruit as many teachers as allowed by that budget.[5]
Within schools, students at the lower primary level receive too few resources, which contributes to P3 children having low achievement levels and being poorly prepared for English only instruction beginning at P4. Government schools allocate fewer teachers (measured on a per student basis) to the early grades of primary school relative to the later grades. The large class size in the early grades constrains teachers in individualizing instruction. The low percent of total hours that teachers are actually present teaching in the classroom also contributes to low student achievement. Another factor contributing to low achievement, high repetition and high dropout is the low percentage of students entering primary school at the appropriate age.
Issue: MoES could create and enforce a norm that requires that class sizes be no larger in the early grades [P1 – P3] than in the later grades [P4 – P7]. In schools where there are a sufficient number of classrooms, this would require creating additional streams at the lower grades. In schools where there are an insufficient number of classrooms to create additional streams, this would require constructing new classrooms and/or introducing double shifts.
Issue: MoES might consider the following policy change: Put at least as high a priority and as much emphasis on learning achievement levels at P3 as on the percent of children passing the P7 school leaver’s examination, and create incentives [e.g., school merit pay, public recognition] that reward schools that show annual gains and better than expected performance on the P3 test.
Issue: School communities could play an important role in reducing teacher absenteeism from the classroom if there were transparent rules establishing clear expectations about teacher presence in the classroom. Absenteeism might be reduced if the MoES were to publicize norms around the number of hours that teachers should be in the classroom teaching each day, and engage communities to monitor compliance with the norms.
Issue: Strong incentives could reduce student absenteeism. MoES might consider establishing public information campaigns and incentives [e.g. school lunch] to encourage parents to enroll students at the proper age, and create incentives to schools and districts to adopt pro-active policies to enroll students in P1 at the appropriate age. Capitation based funding is one means of providing an incentive to schools to actively try to enroll students.
The lack of an effective inspection system at the district level combined with the limited powers of school management committees [SMCs] to hire and fire school personnel contribute to an almost complete lack of accountability by districts and schools to parents, the public, and the ministry for compliance with MoES norms and guidelines and for adequate educational performance.
Issue: There are several options MoES might consider adopting to strengthen local accountability. It might Increase the capacity of SMCs to develop school budgets, including the UPE grant, and monitor expenditures and involve the SMC in the annual performance evaluation of headmasters. It might also consier developing district level report cards which give district residents the information required to assess the performance of DEOs, as well as school level report cards that include the school budget, school outcomes, student and teacher absenteeism, and the level of resources that parents have a right to expect in their schools. Creating school-wide incentives for unexpectedly good performance that bring the community and teaching faculty together in pursuit of a common goal is also a good idea.
Efficiency of Primary Teacher Education.
Pre-service teacher training occurs in too many poorly resourced Primary Teacher Colleges [PTCs], while in-service training takes place in Coordinating Centers [CCs] dispersed throughout the country and affiliated with 23 core PTCs. The experience of other countries shows that using in-service training to produce qualified teachers is more cost-effective than traditional, pre-service training, and Uganda’s experience appears to be consistent with that finding. However, more careful analysis needs to be carried out to determine the cost-effectiveness of producing qualified teachers via the two modes of training. In addition, more analysis is required to determine what capacity is required for producing qualified teachers via traditional pre-service training, how many PTCs should be upgraded to provide higher quality and more cost-effective pre-service training, and what is the minimum size required for a PTC to be both effective and efficient.
Issue: MoES might consider carrying out a survey of PTCs and CCs to estimate the unit costs and the classroom effectiveness of qualified teachers produced by these two different modalities. It could determine the future demand for teachers, taking account of teacher attrition, demographic change, and policies concerning the pupil-teacher ratio and other factors that affect demand. On the basis of the demand and cost studies, MoES could determine how many PTCs should remain operating, and identify means of adequately resourcing both PTCs and CCs.
Internal Efficiency of Secondary Education.
The internal efficiency of public secondary education is low and unit costs are high. The reasons for low efficiency include low workloads, poor teacher deployment, and high teacher salaries. A significant portion of secondary school teachers are under-utilized. The reasons include an overly prescriptive curriculum, constraints on classroom space, and small schools in terms of student enrollment. In addition, the salaries of public secondary school teachers, and especially of public secondary school headmasters, are high relative to per capita GDP, high relative to primary school teachers, and high relative to salaries paid teachers in private secondary schools [see Table F2 and Figure F3]. If the Government carries through with its plans to significantly increase secondary school net enrollment rates, these high salaries may very well be unsustainable.
Issue: Simplifying the secondary school curriculum by requiring fewer courses, and mandating that all teachers should be required to have the skills to teach at least two subject matters could reduce the unit costs of secondary schooling..
Isuse: The MoPS might consider contracting independent analysts to study the teacher labor market in Uganda to determine appropriate salary levels of secondary school teachers and headmasters and to propose options for reducing average salaries [e.g., protecting currently employed teachers and headmasters while employing new teachers using a new pay scale].