Situation analySiS

Situation analySiS of Children in uganda 20154 the right toeducAtion Andother developmentAlrightsThis chapter discusses some of the progress made in increasing thenumbers of children in education in Uganda and the remaining barriers toachieving high-quality education for all children throughout the country.It focuses on pre-primary, primary, secondary and vocational education,although tertiary, university and adult services (formal and informal) arealso recognised as key components of a comprehensive education system.4.1 INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEWUganda has made important strides in extending primary schooling to the great majority ofchildren across the country. The Universal Primary Education (UPE) programme introducedin 1997 abolished all (official) tuition and parent teacher association (PTA) fees and led toa three-fold increase in enrolment. When universal secondary education was introducedin 2007, enrolment increased by 25%, although enrolment rates remain much lower thanthose for primary school. In terms of pre-primary education, data are hard to come bybut most provision is private and concentrated in urban areas in the Central region, andis beyond the reach of most families. The National Integrated ECD policy (2013) aims toincrease access to ECD centres, to improve quality and to develop relevant integrated andmultisectoral ECD services.4.2 PROGRESS AND CHALLENGES INSERVICE PROVISION4.2.1 Pre-primary educationComprehensive data on early childhood development (ECD) service providers, users andchildren accessing them are not readily available and estimates referred to in differentdocuments vary widely. The UDHS (2011) survey estimates the net attendance ratio (NAR)in pre-primary to be 23% (UBOS and ICF International, 2012), while the MoESTS (2014)estimates the net enrolment ratio (NER) to be 9.5%. 66. The NER for pre-primary school is the percentage of the pre-primary-school-age population (3–5 years) that attends pre-primary school.thE rIGht to EDUCatIoN aND othEr DEvELoPMENtaL rIGhtS49