Rapid population growth affects quality of education, says ministry
Education minister Jessica Alupo signs on the five-year education strategic plan board yesterday at the Golf Course Hotel in Kampala yesterday as Elizabeth Kyolaba, a poet from Gayaza Junior School, looks on. PHOTO BY RACHEL MABALA
What you need to know:
Controversy. Education ministry Permanent Secretary said the high growth in population annually is affecting education service delivery.
Kampala. The ministry of Education yesterday said rapid population growth was exerting pressure on the limited resources to deliver quality education.
Presenting her annual performance report, Ms Rose Nassali Lukwago, the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, told the 12th Education Sector Review workshop that government’s commitment is hampered by the big population.
She appealed to the public to advocate lower population growth if they are to get quality services.
“The rapid population growth estimated at 3.5 per cent per annum is putting pressure on the existing resources and facilities. We need to do something to control this population growth. It is our duty, all of us, to advocate for lower population growth,” Ms Lukwago said.
She, however, admitted the challenge of the presence of ghost teachers, ghost pupils and ghost schools within the ministry which also undermine the delivery of quality education.
A representative of the development partners at the workshop urged government to draw mechanisms to improve the quality of education if the country is to become middle income by 2040.
“I am unhappy to report that we continue to face low quality education in primary grades. This is evidenced by low level of literacy that children are achieving in Primary Six and low survival rate where few students complete Primary Seven,” Mr Mark Meassick, the United States Agency for International Development (Usaid) acting director, said.
He further expressed donors’ disappointment at the low quality outcomes insisting there should be effective monitoring to ensure there is value for money.
While it was reported that enrollment of primary had increased from 8.4 million to 8.7 million pupils, the pupil-teacher ratio remained constant.
“We need to address and find more effective forms of inspection, continuous monitoring and support supervision. The review brings to mind many questions that the Ministry of Education and development partners have been grappling with. How do we ensure that spending in education leads to actual learning?”
Statistics
The pupil classroom ratio declined from 51:1 in financial year 2013/14 to 59:1 in 2014/15. The total number of teachers on government payroll reduced by 6 per cent from 132, 656 to 131, 840. The transition rate to Senior One declined by almost two percentage points from 72.2per cent to 70.5per cent. The transition rate to Senior Five also declined by the same margin.
