Credit: TEP Photo/Rosie Oakley

ABOUT US

The Talk Education Partnership is a UK-based charity (No. 1170858) working to improve standards of primary education in eastern Uganda. In close partnership with Ugandan educators, we are working to develop free professional training, share and promote effective pedagogies, and develop essential infrastructure in education.

UGANDA PRIMARY EDUCATION STATS

PRIMARY EDUCATION IN UGANDA

In recent decades huge progress has been made in advancing primary education in Uganda. Since the late 1980s, the Ugandan government has undertaken comprehensive reforms in policy planning and implementation, and directed significant public expenditure towards building classrooms and recruiting teachers. Introducing Universal Primary Education (UPE) in 1997, the government abolished school fees and sought to make primary education accessible to all, leading to an unprecedented surge in primary school enrollment.

Despite these advances, countless children still face impassable barriers to education and the quality of service delivery is often low. Lack of formally qualified teachers and inadequate training remain key areas of concern. In 2003, a national study suggested 54,069 (37%) of the 145,703 primary teachers had no formal training, the majority in rural areas. Low quality of primary education is demonstrated in alarmingly low learning achievement. In 2013, the percentage of P6 pupils rated proficient in numeracy and literacy was 40.15% and 41.4% (EMIS, 2014) respectively, implying that more than a half of the pupils enrolled in P6 could not read and write simple sentences or engage in basic arithmetic.

UPE schools also struggle with inadequate school facilities. Many schools lack classrooms, basic scholastic materials, latrines, teacher accommodations, secure storage spaces, offices, power and means of accessing safe drinking water. Equipped with only scarce resources and infrastructure, schools often struggle to operate effectively and accommodate huge numbers of enrolled pupils. Levels of absenteeism, repetition and drop-out among learners are high - especially in rural areas - given the pressures of subsistence living and income poverty. In Uganda, the national survival rate through to the last year of primary is staggeringly low at 34.99% (UNESCO, 2012), implying the majority of children who begin primary education do not complete it.

WHAT WE DO

Based in Tororo district in eastern Uganda, we are working to assist local educators developing free professional training and addressing key areas of concern such as reading skills in young learners. We are also working to assist schools in the provision of educational resources, developing key infrastructure such as classrooms and access to safe drinking water.

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