Environments of Disadvantage in Uganda’s Universal Primary Education

Abstract

This paper shows that children who are disadvantaged by their environments have educational outcomes that lag behind those of other children, despite the fact that it has been more than ten years since the implementation of the Universal Primary Education (UPE) program in Uganda. While UPE has had a positive impact on access to education among children, improved indicators for educational quality (i.e., pupil/teacher ratio, pupil/classroom ratio and pupil/textbook ratio) and ensured gender equity in enrollment, the program nonetheless has not fully captured improved learning outcomes for some one million pupils considered disadvantaged in Uganda. These include girls, physically disabled children, orphans, street children, internally displaced children, nomadic children and very poor children. Nevertheless, the Ugandan government, working with a host of donors and employing a sector-wide approach to education, has initiated a number of nonformal education programs that have sought with varying degrees of success to address disadvantaged children’s access barriers to basic education.