Why are children from poorer countries not going to school?
From an economic perspective, education is valued for its role in helping people to become more productive, achieve higher earnings and avoid poverty. One of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for education highlights ensuring ‘inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong opportunities for all’ as a key tenet for driving development.
School Attendance Rates in Poorer Countries
When examining primary school attendance rates (as opposed to enrolment rates, which only show the amount of children registered at a given school), we see an attendance percentage amongst the ‘least developed countries’ (LDCs) of 74% - compared to a global average of 87%. Essentially, a quarter of the world's poorest children are not going to school.
In Uganda, that number is 15%, which given the huge population of school age children, paints a sobering picture. Alarmingly, even amongst those that do regularly attend school, roughly only half of those go on to finish the prescribed 7 years.
Why is school attendance in poorer countries so low?
Many of the LDCs have free tuition for primary school aged children; in Uganda, the ‘Universal Primary Education’ policy grants free primary tuition in all government schools. It may therefore seem surprising that attendance is so low, however, there are many other economic reasons that clarify the situation:
Education Quality
The quality of education itself has suffered from less highly trained teachers and higher teacher to pupil ratios caused by increased enrolment. As the amount of pupils enrolled has risen sharply, teachers have been rushed through training, and financial and time constraints mean the educational infrastructure is not sufficient to allow children to reach their potential in the classroom.
Labour Market
As the market flooded with a supply of primary school completers, unmatched by the creation of job opportunities, it became increasingly difficult to find jobs in the formal sector with a primary-level education only. With a greater pool of potential candidates to choose from, employers might only accept secondary school or university degree level candidates. The knock-on effect of this is that those who only finish primary school can expect to struggle when looking for a job, reducing incentives to complete primary school.
Cost/Benefit Analysis
Money and time are scarce resources, and parents are faced with constraints on how to best allocate these limited resources to the maximum benefit of the family. Even without tuition fees, education can still be expensive - textbooks, uniform, food and travel are all considerations that can be prohibitive for families with limited income.
In our work in rural Uganda, we observe school fees as the number one expense for village families, despite the ‘Universal Primary Education’ policy of free tuition. Decision makers of the family must take into account these associated costs, as well as foregone costs that a child could have earned had they been working, for example, farming the family’s land (known as ‘opportunity costs’).
Given the issues listed above with a lack of opportunities in the labour market, and typically low educational outcomes in rural government schools, persisting with schooling is a decision many families have decided against. And it is up to us at The Uganda School Project to demonstrate to the communities we work in, that education at our government schools is a worthwhile investment of time and money. Read more about our how we are doing that here, and our work towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals here