'COVID-19: Rural, urban education gap widening'

A study by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) has found that the lack of equitable distribution of education materials to stay-home learners has widened the rural-urban education gap at end of August this year.

At the household level, participation in any education or learning activities widened due to several measures taken by the Government to stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The findings are contained in the UBOS second round of the Uganda High-Frequency Phone Survey (HFPS) on COVID-19 conducted in July and August.

In June, UBOS officially launched the HFPS to track the impacts of the pandemic on a monthly basis, for a year.

Of the 2,421 households targeted, 2,227 households were interviewed in round one and of those, 2,199 were interviewed in round two, representing a 99% response rate between rounds.

These households had at least one child engaged in learning activities. According to the latest findings, the most frequent reasons for not participating in any educational or learning activities were lack of learning materials, low student interest, no access to radio/television, and increased household chores.

Stephen Baryahirwa, the acting director of the directorate of social-economic surveys, said the findings only meant that not much learning is taking place at the household level.

"There seems to be no difference between round one (conducted in June) and round two in accessing learning materials. In round one, we had 59% of the acting director of the directorate of social-economic surveys, said the findings only meant that not much learning is taking place at the household level.

"There seems to be no difference between round one (conducted in June) and round two in accessing learning materials. In round one, we had 59% who had accessed learning materials and in round two, we have 60%," Baryahirwa said.

"From our statistics, 59% is not very different from 60%, so there is no change. "The Ministry of Education and other agencies are trying to help the learners who are not in school, but nothing much has been done to see whether the ones at home are able to access learning materials. Even with this 60% that have been reported to have got learning materials, the majority of them are in urban areas," he added.

During the period, the share of households with at least one child participating in any educational or learning declined slightly in rural areas (56% to 54%) and increased in urban areas (67% to 73%). "This further widened the existing gap between rural and urban areas from 11 percentage points in the first round to 19 percentage points in the second round," the report said.

The data also indicated that only 42% of children aged three to 18 years living in households in the poorest quintile engaged in any education or learning compared to 69% in the richest quintile.

EFFORTS TO IMPROVE HOME LEARNING

The education ministry, through the National Curriculum Development Centre and the Uganda National Examinations Board, developed home study materials to facilitate continuity of learning during the lockdown period.

The education ministry's officials say the distribution of materials was guided by UBOS population data, which depicts the number of children between the ages of six and 18 in each district and sub-county.

In April, these materials were printed and delivered by New Vision. Reacting to the UBOS report, the education ministry's permanent secretary, Alex Kakooza, observed that, "normally when they talk about the impact, it is always the distribution.

"The quality of work was well done and of a great standard. We did not have a big budget and the distribution was low. The reach was so low, at around 25% and this, indeed, may not have been felt by many parents and we appreciate their concern. He added; "But we now have a solution to this issue. But we are procuring materials to send to all learners around the country.

The materials cover the entire syllabus and will reach every student around the country."

MORE MATERIALS

Students in continuing classes, who did not return to school following the closure of schools due to COVID-19; are set to have printed homework from the Government, thanks to a $14.57m (sh54b) grant through the World Bank.

The funds have been obtained from the Global Partnership for Education (GPE); which is a multi-stakeholder partnership and funding platform aimed at strengthening education in developing countries.

The process for the acquisition of the funds has been in the pipeline for months, with the request made to GPE mid this year. "We hope we will soon send the reading materials to the students. We appreciate the Government and the partners for helping us with this grant," Kakooza noted.

The radios will cost taxpayers at least sh337b. Appearing before Parliament committee last week, minister for higher education Dr. John Chrysostom Muyingo and state minister for planning David Bahati, were tasked with explaining whether the procurement was based on an assessment survey to establish the need for radios and their practicability in facilitating learning.

The MPs on the budget committee also asked the officials to present a survey report on the impact of the previous methods, such as printing materials to establish their success.

Meanwhile, Government's plan to procure radios for learners is yet to start, after education and finance ministries failed to convince Members of Parliament on the need to procure nine million radio sets to facilitate distance learning for students.