UIS Fast Track Initiative Statistical Capacity Building

Goal
Development of national capacity to design, develop and maintain an effective, efficient and sustainable National Education Statistical Information System (NESIS) capable of providing reliable, timely and relevant information for monitoring, assessment and evaluation of progress toward the achievement of EFA, Millennium Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy goals.

Purpose
To improve monitoring, assessment and evaluation of progress toward the achievement of EFA, Millennium Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy goals.

Activities
• Establishment of National Technical Committee to oversee the activities.
• Diagnostic Study to determine the information needs and capacity gaps in NESIS.
• Preparation of National Action Plan for the development of capacity of the NESIS.
• Implementation of the Action Plan.
• Independent evaluation.

Outputs
• National Technical Committee and its Terms of Reference.
• Diagnostic study report on information needs and capacity gaps in NESIS.
• National action plan for the development of capacity of the NESIS.

The Universal Primary Education (UPE) policy and its implementation has been a great success and has greatly increased access to education at this level. Between 1997 and 2003 enrolment at Primary school levels rose from 2.7 to 7.3 million respectively in Uganda. An estimated 85% of the school going age children are enrolled in Primary schools. Programmes like ABEK (Alter-native Basic Education for Karamoja) are already in place to cover the remaining 15% in the disadvantaged and nomadic communities.
Because of this, Uganda has qualified for the Education For All (EFA) fast track initiative (a global fund aimed at assisting countries with sound education policies and implementation strategies) to meet the Dakar 2000 world conference on Education goals.
The Launching of UPE resulted into a bulge which has been flowing through the primary Education structure. The first cohort of children who entered primary one will sit their Primary leaving examinations at the end of 2004.

Accommodating this bulge of potential entrants to post primary Education constitutes a major challenge. Previously 50% of the 400,000 plus school leavers were able to attend post primary Education institutions. This situation will be compounded when about nine hundred thousand (900,000) UPE candidates will be seeking admission opportunities in post primary institutions in years to come.

In 2002 therefore the Ministry of Education and Sports drew up the Post Primary Education and Training (PPET) policy and costed framework to make provision for absorbing the UPE bulge into the post primary sector of education.

While the increasing social demand for post primary Education and training is a direct result of UPE, it is also an indication of the growing need by the people to acquire knowledge and skills to enable them face the challenges of the 21st century and improve the quality of their lives. The post primary Education and training policy includes the following components:

• Renovation and expansion of the existing traditional secondary schools so that more students can be admitted.

• Construction of libraries and laboratories to enhance the teaching and learning process in schools and to improve on the school curriculum.

• Construction of “seed” schools where there are none. (These are ordinary level secondary schools located in remote rural areas to give primary school leavers access to secondary education).

• Grant aiding community schools by availing them with capitation and development grants to improve on school/ programme management and school infrastructure.
• Construction of community polytechnics in rural areas to provide opportunities for skills training to the young school leavers and drop outs to make them economically productive.

• Rehabilitation and expansion of existing farm schools which offer market oriented skills for rural development in response to current employment demands.

• Promotion of apprenticeship schemes by the private sector for hands on training.

• Review of skills training curricular to make it employment demand driven and flexible in content and structure.

• Support to private Business Technical Vocational Education institutions by development partners for example GTZ.

The PPET policy and programme has given an integrated and holistic approach to the Post Primary sub sector in the education system. This has improved on the transition rates of children from primary levels of education to the post primary levels. The PPET policy and programme has also highlighted the strategic inter sector link-ages between the education sector and other social services and productive sectors.

Through Government restructuring all training departments were recently transferred to the Ministry of Education and Sports as a measure of streamlining education and training processes in the country .This is already producing positive results.

At the same time the shift from exclusive education to mass education has brought about an urgent need for more classrooms and other infrastructure. The expansion of Post Primary Education has resulted in the grant aiding of community secondary schools and construction of new ones in areas where there are none. Community polytechnics are being constructed to promote technical education and vocational training for the youth.