Research Evidence ECCE in Uganda

ECCE in Uganda

Good potential, yet more to do

Session 2: Evidence on the status of ECCE in Uganda

National ECCE Symposium

19-20 July, Protea Hotel, Kampala

1

Importance of topic, Ugandan context, nature of studies

2

Some detailed statistical and qualitative findings

3

4

Over-arching statistical and qualitative “story”

Resulting policy implications

Importance of ECCE

Approx. brain weight gain and approx. school spending* by age

Brain development

• Consequences into middle age

• Brain development takes place in a short window that includes pre-primary years; limited catching up

• Investment should better track brain growth

Economic impact

Long term

• The longer you have to recover an investment, the higher the rate of return. Plus, knowledge is built on knowledge. 7% to 10% ROI to ECCE investment.

Short term

• Fiscal savings from improved school flow-through to completion: approx. US$ 274 per completer, or $274 million per million completers.

Brain weight gain Spending

Sources: Adapted based on Debakan and Sadowsky 1978under Creative Commons license; Estimation based on World Bank EdStats datase. *: LI Countries

Uganda’s context

Demographics

• Growth of 4-5 age group down from 3.7% in 1990 to 2.6% now, slowing fast: reap the dividend?

Comparative system capacity

Inefficiencies in spending in Uganda

• Current cost per completer is $274 higher than it needs to be, representing a waste of 43% of the budget, or approx. US $140 million per year.

ComparativeEnrolment

Results

Statistically and qualitatively significant

Cambridge Education

• Over 500 interviewees

• 23 Organisations at National Level

• 5 Teacher Colleges

• 10 Districts

• 30 Parishes

• 143 ECD Centres surveyed – 69% rural, 31% urban

Ark

• Mapping pre-primary services in 19 sub-counties in West Nile

• 218 ECD Centres recorded

• 114 ECD Centres surveyed

RTI

• Nationally representative, all regions

• Random sampling with formal statistical properties

• 1440 Primary 1 pupils randomly selected from 120 schools across 24 districts

• 1439 interviews with their specific teachers, 1318 with parents/guardians

• 50% girls; 50% boys

• Even coverage of wealth segments

1

Importance of topic, Ugandan context, nature of studies

2

Some detailed statistical and qualitative findings

3

4

Over-arching statistical and qualitative “story”

Resulting policy implications

Headline findings - access

Uganda’s access to pre-primary is ½ of what it is in the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa (UNESCO). 1

2

Around 30% of children attend some form of pre-primary Official statistics around 10-15%: under-registration?

For more see here

3

Over 70% of ECD Centres rely on fees for their operating income

4

The poorest have least access

Those with low income attend ½ as much as those with higher income

62% of parents who do not use preprimary: finances are the barrier

Only 13% of ECD Centres care for 1-3 year olds

Enrolment is increasing over time, but hard to say by how much

EMIS statistics show increases, but may partly simply represent increased registration

Headline findings - quality

Quality was found to be highly uneven. There are some good practices, but no real quality assurance and standardisation across the system.

1

2

No districts have dedicated ECCE staff or budgets

Effective quality control essentially impossible

3

Around 40% of caregivers had no appropriate qualification

4

More than 50% of ECD Centres don’t meet MoES criteria

Further data on compliance here

5

While there are many models, no one model clearly emerges as best practice in terms of quality No effective quality assurance and quality tracking

6

In majority of ECD Centres: no appropriate learning materials

40% had no playbased learning Corporate punishment observed in many ECD Centres

Vast majority of ECCE providers self-report as not proficient in handling children with disability

Around 9% of children have some form of disability (RTI)

1

Importance of topic, Ugandan context, nature of studies

2

Some detailed statistical and qualitative findings

3

4

Over-arching statistical and qualitative “story”

Resulting policy implications

Summary of main findings

• Access to ECCE is low and biased against the poor

• Little evidence of quality assurance; quality highly variable

• On quality: staffing, budget, and lack of/unclear/unrealistic standards (especially outcome standards) seem an issue; even mere registration is a problem

• Lack of and low-quality ECCE encourages repetition in early grades

• Repetition and over-enrolment in early grades undermine system efficiency: 2 years of effort for every grade advanced

1

Importance of topic, Ugandan context, nature of studies

2

Some detailed statistical and qualitative findings

3

4

Over-arching statistical and qualitative “story”

Resulting policy implications

Emerging recommendations - access

Consider targeted subsidies for poor

Simplify registration

Build on provision platforms that already exist

Improve data on access by registering and counting nonregistered

Emerging recommendations - quality

Clarify, simplify standards, focus on outcomes, including private sector regulation

Simplify classification system

Dedicate budget and staff to quality support at district level

Enhance role of parents and parenting in ECCE and foundation years

Invest in quality assurance especially with focus on outcomes

Set up systemic quality observation and reporting, spread lessons: best practices and best models emerge

Prizes and excellence awards to emerging bestpractice ECCE Centres

Clearer, simpler quality standards communicated to ECCE Centres

Emerging recommendations – system efficiency

Improve consistency of ECCE and foundation years’ policies

Control repetition and age-for-grade once more ECCE options are available

Early years curriculum should “ramp up” children more gradually into Primary 1

Improve quality of foundation years in line with improved ECCE

Policy questions

• Targeted subsidies, based on improved selection from existing platforms – can it work?

• Simplification and clarification of quality standards, and more focus on outcome standards?

• Spend more to provide and train staff who can create quality assurance and induce better models to emerge?

• Better line up policies and quality of delivery between pre-primary and foundation years in primary?

Possible next steps

• Use this evidence in ongoing policy dialogue

• Discuss practical limits of the findings and suggestions

• Ensure that emergent policy is as evidence-based as is possible and practical

Further information

Cambridge Education

http://www.camb-ed.com/intdev

Kate Martin kate.martin@camb-ed.com

Derek Nkata derek.nkata@camb-ed.com

Laura Garforth laura.garforth@camb-ed.com

Ark

http://www.arkonline.org/epg

Richard Graham richard.graham@arkonline.org

Jacklyn Makaaru jacklyn.makaaru@arkonline.org

RTI

http://www.rti.org

Tara Weatherholt tweatherholt@rti.org

Luis Crouch lcrouch@rti.org

Annexes

Why is registration impacting on data?

Cambridge Education found that almost 50% of ECD Centres were neither licensed nor registered.

In Ark’s sample, more than 60% of Centres were not registered.

When Centres are unregistered, this leads to skewed educational data and an underestimate of the total number of children accessing ECCE. It also indicates that a large proportion of Centres that may be unsupported, uninspected and unregulated.

What compliance tells us about quality

While the majority of ECD Centres surveyed met with standard infrastructure requirements, aspects of quality that relate to ‘deeper’ aspects of child stimulation and wellbeing are less often catered for.

Overall, Cambridge Education’s research showed that 58% of ECD Centres did not achieve a score that would enable them to pass the MoES minimum requirements for operating.