Determinants of household expenditure on education in Uganda

Abstract

The objective of this study was examining the determinants of household expenditure on education in Uganda. This was motivated by fact that while Uganda was one of the first African countries to introduce Universal Primary Education (UPE) in 1997 and later on in 2007 introduced Universal Secondary Education (USE), parents and other well-wishers have been complaining of the increased fees structure. Using UNPS 2019/20 data set and employing ANOVA model, the study examined the effect of household head, household, children, and school characteristics on Total school expenditure by Households. The analysis was done using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, two sample t-test analysis and one-way analysis models. The study findings reveal that current level / grade a child is attending, number of school going children, Education level of the household head, wok status of the household head majorly determine household education on education, whereby households spend a significantly much on children attending higher education levels/ grades say Tertiary, working household heads also spend more on education as compared to their counterparts, household heads who attained generally high Education spend a considerably more on their children’s Education and also households with a big number of school going children spend more on education as well. Other factors which have a positive influence on the household expenditure on Education are distance to school and Age of household age. Basing on the findings, the study recommended the Education policies in Uganda need to take into account the equality of opportunity in Education to ensure that children from households whose heads are not working access education as well, as this will lead to higher intergenerational mobility in Uganda.