Uganda Learning Poverty Brief July 2021 LEARNING POVERTY: A WORLD BANK-UIS INDICA- LEARNING POVERTY IN UGANDA TOR TO HIGHLIGHT THE LEARNING CRISIS • Learning Poverty. 83 percent of children in Uganda All children should be able to read by age 10. Reading is a at late primary age today are not pro cient in reading, gateway for learning as the child progresses through school— adjusted for the out-of-school children. and conversely, an inability to read constrains opportunities for further learning. Reading pro ciency is also critical for • Learning Deprivation. Large-scale learning assess- foundational learning in other subjects. ments of students in Uganda indicate that 81 percent do not achieve the MPL at the end of primary school, In low- and middle-income countries, more than half the proxied by data from grade 6 in 2014. children cannot read and understand a simple story by the end of primary school. This learning crisis threatens coun- • Schooling Deprivation. In Uganda, 9 percent of pri- tries’ e orts to build human capital and achieve the Sustain- mary school-aged children are not enrolled in school. able Development Goals (SDGs), undermining sustainable These children are excluded from learning in school. growth and poverty reduction. Tackling the learning crisis in the foreseeable future requires For countries with very low Schooling Deprivation, the share rapid progress at a scale that has not been seen yet. To gal- of children with Learning Deprivation will be very close to vanize action on this crisis, we introduced the concept of the reported Learning Poverty. Learning Poverty (LP), a measure constructed jointly by the Notes: The LP number for Uganda is calculated using data from NLSA and the MPL thresh- World Bank and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). old used was level Advanced. No learning data harmonization following the Global Learning Assessment Database (GLAD) guidelines has been produced for Uganda, this limits the WHAT IS LEARNING POVERTY? current analytical possibilities for this country. For more details, please consult the GLAD and Learning Poverty repositories in GitHub. Learning Poverty means being unable to read and understand a short, age-appropriate text by age 10. All foundational skills are important, but we focus on reading because: (i) read- BENCHMARKING UGANDA’S LEARNING POVERTY ing pro ciency is an easily understood measure of learning; Learning Poverty in Uganda is 3.2 percentage points lower (ii) reading is a student’s gateway to learning in every other than the average for the Sub-Saharan Africa region and 8 area; and, (iii) reading pro ciency can serve as a proxy for percentage points lower than the average for low income foundational learning in other subjects. countries. The Learning Poverty indicator allows us to illustrate progress toward SDG 4’s broader goal to ensure inclusive Figure 1. Learning Poverty and components and equitable quality education for all. It particularly high- lights progress towards SDG 4.1.1b, which speci es that all children at the end of primary reach at least a minimum pro ciency level (MPL) in reading. HOW IS LEARNING POVERTY MEASURED? The indicator combines the share of primary-aged children out-of-school who are Schooling Deprived (SD), and the share of pupils below a minimum pro ciency in reading, who are Learning Deprived (LD). By combining schooling and learning, the indicator brings into focus both “more school- ing”, which by itself serves a variety of critical functions, as well as “better learning,” which is important to ensure that time spent in school translates into acquisition of skills and capabilities. LP = SD + [(1 − SD) × LD] where, LP is Learning Poverty; LD , Learning Deprivation, is share of children at the end Source: UIS and World Bank as of May 2021. of primary below minimum pro ciency, as de ned by the Global Alliance to Monitor Notes: (1) Yellow circle represents Uganda; (2) Gray circles represent other countries; and, Learning (GAML) in the context of the SDG 4.1.1b monitoring; SD , Schooling Deprivation, (3) Vertical lines re ect the averages of Uganda’s region and income group. is the share of primary-aged children who are out-of-school, and is linked to SDG 4.1.4. All out-of-school children are implicitly assumed to be below minimum pro ciency. The data used to calculate Learning Poverty has been made possible thanks to the work of the Global Alliance to Moni- tor Learning led by UIS, which established minimum pro- ciency levels that enable countries to benchmark learning across di erent cross-national and national assessments. Uganda Learning Poverty Brief July 2021 HOW DOES UGANDA’S GENDER GAP COMPARE GLOB- PRIMARY EDUCATION EXPENDITURE ALLY? Primary education expenditure per child of primary educa- In Uganda, lack of data prevents comparisons of Learning tion age in Uganda is USD 104 (PPP), which is 81.5% below Poverty for boys and girls. the average for the Sub-Saharan Africa region and 40.6% below the average for low income countries. Table 1 shows sex disaggregation for Learning Poverty and Human Capital Index (HCI) education components when- ever available. Figure 3. Expenditure per child of primary school age Table 1. Sex Disaggregation Indicators and Components Boys Girls All Learning Poverty NA NA 82.8 Learning Deprivation NA NA 81.1 Schooling Deprivation 10.4 7.6 9 Human Capital Index NA NA 0.38 Source: UIS and World Bank as of May 2021. Note: Primary education expenditure per child Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling NA NA 4.3 is calculated as total expenditure on primary education divided by total number of children of primary school age. Data for Uganda is from 2014. Source: UIS and World Bank for LP, LD and SD as of May 2021; EdStats/WDI (World Development Indicators) for HCI and LAYS (Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling); The DATA AND DATA GAPS ON LEARNING AND SCHOOL- Full Learning Poverty database is available for download at the Development Data Hub. ING IN UGANDA Uganda administers a National Large-Scale Assessment Figure 2. Gender Gap - Learning Poverty by Sex (NLSA) at the end of primary school, according to UIS SDG 4.1.1b monitoring. This NLSA is currently being used for interim reporting on SDG 4.1.1 and to monitor Learning Poverty. Uganda participated in the following published cross- national learning assessments in recent years: SACMEQ (2000, 2007). According to the World Bank’s 2012 LeAP diagnostic analy- sis of Uganda’s assessment system, the country’s ratings on large-scale assessment activities were Emerging (2 out of 4) on Cross-National Learning Assessment and Established (3 out of 4) on NLSA. Latent is absence of, or deviation from, attribute. Emerging is partial presence of attribute. Estab- lished is acceptable minimum standard on indicator. Ad- vanced is ideal or current best practice. To update results, contact LeAP team. The out-of-school adjustment in Learning Poverty relies on Source: UIS and World Bank as of May 2021. Notes: (1) No gender split in Learning Poverty enrollment data. Our preferred de nition is the adjusted net is available for Uganda. Only countries with data displayed; and, (2) The closer a country is primary enrollment rate (ANER) as reported by UIS. This to the dotted line the smaller its LP gender gap. data relies both on the population census and EMIS (Educa- tion Management Information System). We use enrollment data for the year closest to the assessment year. In the case of Uganda, ANER based on EMIS data is for 2013. Notes: The de nition of NLSA does not include National Exams; LeAP: Learning Assess- ment Platform (LeAP-team@worldbank.org). SACMEQ: The Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality. For questions related to the data in the brief, contact the EduAnalytics team (eduanalytics@worldbank.org). POINT OF CONTACT Uganda: Hongyu Yang and Ruth Charo and Julia Liberman Sub-Saharan Africa: Tihtina Zenebe Gebre #LearningPoverty Disclaimer: The numbers in this brief are based on data harmonization e orts by UIS and the World Bank to increase cross-country comparability of learning data. Therefore, numbers may be di erent from o cial statistics reported by governments. Such di erences are due to their di erent purposes, which can be global comparison or meeting national de nitions.