Who Accesses Secondary Schooling in Uganda; Was the Universal Secondary Education Policy Ubiquitously Effective?

Christian Kakuba, Makerere University, Centre for Population and Applied Statistics

This paper explores the predictors of accessing secondary schooling for children of secondary school age, almost one decade after the introduction of universal secondary education. This is done for i) rural Uganda ii) Kampala and iii) the rest of urban areas in the wake of increasing urbanization of the rural areas that assumes urban homogeneity in otherwise heterogeneous situations. I use the Uganda census cross-sectional data for 2014 and the logit model to predict the probability of enrolling at secondary given individual, household and community level variables. I find out that only 22% of children aged 13-18 were enrolled at secondary and that both demand and supply related predictors of accessing secondary may vary by place of residence. The policy implication here is that while more effort is needed to boost access to secondary, area specific strategies are needed to respond to specific challenges by place of residence.