Addressing the challenges of providing quality education for all in Uganda: primary education policy suggestions based on Southern African Consortium for Monitoring Education Quality (SACMEQ) survey 2013; SACMEQ Project IV report

The main thrust of this particular case study was directed towards gaining a critical understanding of the country-specific in school and out of school factors that condition the efficiency, effectiveness and quality of primary school education. It additionally sought to measure the literacy and numeracy achievement levels of primary six (P.6) pupils on an incremental scale of competence. The case study relied on SACMEQ III project survey research design that utilized three pre-tested and validated Teacher, Pupil and Head teacher questionnaires as well as the skills-audited Pupil and Teacher reading and mathematics tests in a mutually supportive manner. A stratified sample of 264 primary schools was drawn from the national list while simple random sampling techniques were employed to select 5,307 Grade 6 pupils (i.e. 25 from each of the sampled schools) to participate in the study, and 747 teachers. The Head teachers of the participating schools automatically qualified as key informants and the Maths and Reading teachers were purposively selected. Computer assisted procedures were used to process the data, which was subsequently presented in matrix formats that were congruent with the stipulated general policy concerns.