Determinants of School Dropout in Uganda

Abstract

The objective of this study was to assess factors associated with child school dropout 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, it is still faced with a number of challenges including high dropout rates and non-attendance. For instance, the recent UNHS 2016/17 shows that 12 percent of school-going age children have never attended while 48.2% have dropped out of school. Using UNHS 2016/17 and employing a logit model, the study examined the effect of child, household, and community characteristics on the likelihood of a school-going age child dropping out of school. The analysis was done using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and marginal effects after estimating the logistic regression model. The study findings reveal that the main determinants of school drop in Uganda are; the ownership status of the school, location of the school (that is whether in the urban or rural areas), the gender of the pupil, whether or not a pupil is an orphan, the region of the pupil (that is Central, Eastern, Northern, and the Western), the sex and highest level of education of the household head, the poverty status and the total education experience of the pupil.