Inequality in school enrollment in Uganda among children of ages 6-17 years

In 1997 the government of Uganda introduced the policy of Universal Primary Education – UPE whose aim was to improve on school enrollment. Equal opportunity and access to education is a central theme in the political agenda of government of Uganda, indeed universal access to primary education is MDG Goal II, which governments world over are striving to achieve. Research has not established whether inequalities in access to education still exist a decade after UPE was introduced in the country. Using data from the Uganda National Household Survey 2009/2010, this paper attempts to examine this issue. A total of 12,424 children of ages 6-17 years are selected for study. An index of dissimilarity and a binary logistic regression are fitted to the data, adjusted for a number of social and demographic characteristics. The findings suggest that 81% of the children were currently attending school. Gender disparities in enrollment were not significant in the regression model. However, substantial and significant differences were observed for the various regions of the country, among the poor, and household size. Although not all factors affecting current enrollment among children were analyzed, the discourse in this paper suggests need for intervention to address enrollment inequalities.