IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/injoed/v50y2016icp41-50.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Universal, but not free: Household schooling costs and equity effects of Uganda’s Universal Secondary Education policy

Author

Listed:
  • Omoeva, Carina
  • Gale, Charles

Abstract

A general consensus regarding universal schooling policies is that they have boosted enrollments while ignoring the quality of learning, although there is burgeoning research interest in the extent to which such policies have contributed to more equitable educational delivery. This paper analyzes household and school level effects of Uganda’s Universal Secondary Education (USE) policy, launched in 2007. We rely on data drawn from the Uganda National Panel Survey (UNPS) rounds in 2005 and 2009–11, which are included as part of the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS). We find that receipt of the USE capitation grant has increased substantially for most pupils, and is associated with a 60% reduction in household spending on education per child, at the lower secondary level. At the same time this relationship does not differ by wealth or by region. Further, we do not find evidence to suggest the policy boosted school attendance or retention, at the lower secondary level. Overall, our findings suggest a need for greater attention to the equity effects of universal education policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Omoeva, Carina & Gale, Charles, 2016. "Universal, but not free: Household schooling costs and equity effects of Uganda’s Universal Secondary Education policy," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 41-50.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:injoed:v:50:y:2016:i:c:p:41-50
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2016.05.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059316300827
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2016.05.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Glewwe, Paul & Patrinos, Harry Anthony, 1999. "The Role of the Private Sector in Education in Vietnam: Evidence From the Vietnam Living Standards Survey," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 887-902, May.
    2. Ablo, Emmanuel & Reinikka, Ritva, 1998. "Do budgets really matter? - evidence from public spending on education and health in Uganda," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1926, The World Bank.
    3. Mildred, Barungi & Ibrahim, Kasirye, 2015. "Performance of Public-Private Partnerships in delivering social services: The Case of Universal Secondary Education Policy Implementation in Uganda," Policy Briefs 206176, Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC).
    4. Evan Borkum, 2012. "Can Eliminating School Fees in Poor Districts Boost Enrollment? Evidence from South Africa," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(2), pages 359-398.
    5. Adrienne M. Lucas & Isaac M. Mbiti, 2012. "Access, Sorting, and Achievement: The Short-Run Effects of Free Primary Education in Kenya," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 226-253, October.
    6. Lincove, Jane Arnold, 2012. "The influence of price on school enrollment under Uganda's policy of free primary education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 799-811.
    7. Lopez-Acevedo, Gladys & Salinas, Angel, 2000. "Marginal willingness to pay for education and the determinants of enrollment in Mexico," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2405, The World Bank.
    8. Deininger, Klaus, 2003. "Does cost of schooling affect enrollment by the poor? Universal primary education in Uganda," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 291-305, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sakaue, Katsuki, 2018. "Informal fee charge and school choice under a free primary education policy: Panel data evidence from rural Uganda," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 112-127.
    2. Akoyi, K.T. & Mitiku, F. & Maertens, M., 2018. "Is prohibiting child labour enough? Coffee certification and child schooling in Ethiopia and Uganda," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 275958, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    3. Datzberger, Simone, 2022. "Lost in transition? Modernization, formal education and violence in Karamoja," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    4. Idei, Rika & Kato, Hironori & Morikawa, So, 2020. "Contribution of rural roads improvement on children’s school attendance: Evidence in Cambodia," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    5. W. Nabiddo & B.L. Yawe & F. Wasswa, 2022. "Education attainment and household education expenditure in Uganda: An empirical investigation," Journal of Economic Policy and Management Issues, JEPMI, vol. 1(1), pages 21-49.
    6. Datzberger, Simone, 2022. "Education and empowerment: Voices from Ugandan youth," Working Papers 66, Austrian Foundation for Development Research (ÖFSE).
    7. Sophia Kan & Stephan Klasen, 2021. "Evaluating universal primary education in Uganda: School fee abolition and educational outcomes," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 116-147, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Burlando, Alfredo, 2023. "Tuition fees and the intra-household allocation of schooling: Evidence from Uganda’s Free Primary Education reform," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    2. Sakaue, Katsuki, 2018. "Informal fee charge and school choice under a free primary education policy: Panel data evidence from rural Uganda," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 112-127.
    3. Lincove, Jane Arnold, 2015. "Improving Identification of Demand-Side Obstacles to Schooling: Findings from Revealed and Stated Preference Models in Two SSA Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 69-83.
    4. Khiem, Phuong Huu & Linh, Dinh Hong & Tai, Do Anh & Dung, Nguyen Dac, 2020. "Does tuition fee policy reform encourage poor children’s school enrolment? Evidence from Vietnam," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 109-124.
    5. Kasper Brandt & Beatrice K. Mkenda, 2020. "The Impact of Eliminating Secondary School Fees: Evidence from Tanzania," DERG working paper series 20-06, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Development Economics Research Group (DERG).
    6. Valente, Christine, 2019. "Primary education expansion and quality of schooling," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    7. Murat G. Kırdar & Meltem Dayıoğlu & İsmet Koç, 2016. "Does Longer Compulsory Education Equalize Schooling by Gender and Rural/Urban Residence?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 30(3), pages 549-579.
    8. Nikolov, Plamen & Jimi, Nusrat & Chang, Jerray, 2020. "The Importance of Cognitive Domains and the Returns to Schooling in South Africa: Evidence from Two Labor Surveys," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    9. Atuhurra, Julius F., 2016. "Does community involvement affect teacher effort? Assessing learning impacts of Free Primary Education in Kenya," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 234-246.
    10. Oasis Kodila‐Tedika & Christian S. Otchia, 2022. "The effects of free primary education in the Democratic Republic of Congo: A difference‐in‐differences approach," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 2109-2120, November.
    11. Roxana Elena Manea; Pedro Naso, 2020. "School Fee Elimination and Educational Inequality in Tanzania," CIES Research Paper series 64-2020, Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute.
    12. Moshoeshoe,Ramaele Elias, 2020. "Long-Term Effects of Free Primary Education on Educational Achievement : Evidence from Lesotho," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9404, The World Bank.
    13. Lincove, Jane Arnold, 2009. "Determinants of schooling for boys and girls in Nigeria under a policy of free primary education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 474-484, August.
    14. Tessa Bold & Mwangi Kimenyi & Germano Mwabu & Justin Sandefur, 2015. "Can Free Provision Reduce Demand for Public Services? Evidence from Kenyan Education," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 29(2), pages 293-326.
    15. Roxana Elena Manea; Pedro Naso, 2021. "Heterogeneous Impacts of School Fee Elimination in Tanzania: Gender and Colonial Infrastructure," CIES Research Paper series 64-2020, Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute.
    16. Felipe Barrera-Osorio & David S. Blakeslee & Matthew Hoover & Leigh Linden & Dhushyanth Raju & Stephen P. Ryan, 2022. "Delivering Education to the Underserved through a Public-Private Partnership Program in Pakistan," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(3), pages 399-416, May.
    17. Sophia Kan & Stephan Klasen, 2021. "Evaluating universal primary education in Uganda: School fee abolition and educational outcomes," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 116-147, February.
    18. Kyle McNabb, 2017. "Exploring regional and gender disparities in Beninese primary school attendance: A multilevel approach," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-70, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Filmer, Deon, 2023. "Long-lived consequences of rapid scale-up? The case of free primary education in six Sub-Saharan African countries," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    20. Brudevold-Newman, Andrew, 2021. "Expanding access to secondary education: Evidence from a fee reduction and capacity expansion policy in kenya," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:injoed:v:50:y:2016:i:c:p:41-50. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/international-journal-of-educational-development .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.