32807 Africa Region Human Development Working Paper Series Uganda Tertiary Education Sector Report Xiaoyang Liang ii Copyright March 2004 © Human Development Sector Africa Region The World Bank The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this report are entirely those of the author and should not be attributed in any manner to the World Bank, to its affiliated organizations, or to members of its Board of Executive Directors or the countries they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of their use. Cover design by Word Express Cover photo: Xiaoyan Liang TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword Acknowledgements Acronyms Executive Summary 1 1. Introduction 11 1.1 Impact of higher education11 1.2 Purposes of the study 12 1.3 Sector report development process 13 1.4 Data sources 14 1.5 Definition of higher or tertiary education 15 1.6 Organization of the sector report 15 2. Demographic and Economic Context 16 2.1 Background 16 2.2 Economic development strategy 17 2.3 Economic Structure 17 2.4 Population and Social Pressures 18 2.5 The Impact of HIV/AIDS 19 3. Overview of Tertiary Education 20 3.1 Overall Education System 20 3.1.1 Structure 3.1.2 Enrollment 3.1.3 Basic indicators 3.1.4 Government expenditures 3.2 Tertiary Structure and Enrollment 24 3.2.1 Program diversification 3.2.2 Public versus private enrollment 3.2.3 Day programs, evening programs, and distance learning iii 4. Uganda Tertiary System Performance 28 4.1 Coverage 28 4.2 Tertiary coverage of female and the poor 29 4.2.1 By gender 4.2.2 By household socioeconomic status 4.3 Transition and admission into tertiary programs 31 4.4 Internal efficiency: repetition and dropout 32 4.5 Labor market outcomes 33 4.5.1 External efficiencies: employment 4.5.2 Wage premiums and returns to tertiary education 5. Tertiary Education Inputs 36 5.1 Tertiary education curriculum 36 5.1.1 External factors and implications for curriculum design 5.1.2 Science and technology education 5.2 Academic staff 42 5.2.1 Staff recruitment and appointment 5.2.2 Staff promotion in universities 5.2.3 Staff development 5.2.4 Student-lecturer ratio 5.2.5 Staff characteristics and workload 5.2.6 Staff remuneration 5.2.7 Lecturers at the National Teacher Colleges 5.3. Other tertiary inputs 48 5.3.1 Access to information, communication, and technology (ICT) 5.3.2 Tertiary infrastructure 6. Tertiary Education Governance 52 6.1 Regulatory framework 52 6.1.1 Legal framework 6.1.2 Jurisdiction over tertiary education 6.1.3 Government's role 6.2 Institutional autonomy (Academic freedom) 54 6.2.1 Internal governance 6.2.2 Academic freedom 6.3 Accountability/Quality assurance 56 iv 7. Cost and Financing of Tertiary Education in Uganda 59 7.1 Public expenditure 59 7.1.1 Allocation of public expenditures 7.1.2 The myth of government-sponsored students 7.1.3 Implications of the current public financing 7.1.4 Share of public education recurrent expenditure devoted to tertiary education 7.1.5 Tertiary public recurrent per pupil expenditure/subsidy 7.2 Tertiary private expenditure 66 7.2.1 Estimating tertiary private expenditure by using household survey 7.2.2 Estimating student academic fees 7.3 Comparing public subsidy per student and average private expenditure, and unit cost 69 7.4 Options for increasing the overall financing for higher education 70 8. Reforms and Innovations in the Tertiary Sector 73 8.1 Historical contect 73 8.2 Innovation and reform process 73 8.2.1 Challenges 9. Summary and Conclusions 75 10. Broad Policy Recommendations 81 References 85 v FOREWORD Since the mid-1980s, Uganda has been in the forefront of Sub-Saharan African's effort to implement wide-ranging economic and social reforms to achieve sustainable growth. As a result, the country has become one of Africa's success stories. Progress is particularly prominent in the education sector and, especially, in primary education. The President's decision in 1996 to eliminate primary school fees removed what had been an important economic impediment for families to enroll and maintain their children at school. This decision also sent a strong signal that basic education is of high priority. By 2001, about 65 percent of the total education budget was devoted to primary education and the gross enrollment ratio for this level increased from about 75 percent in 1995 to about 135 percent in 2002. There is a strong international consensus on the crucial importance to economic and social development of good quality, universal basic education. However, there is also agreement on that strategies to achieve this objective need to be an integral part of an holistic approach covering all levels and types of education. In this context, tertiary education is of particular importance in today's globalized, information and knowledge-based economy. No country can expect to successfully integrate in, and benefit from, this economy without a well-educated workforce. The stakes are particularly high for Sub-Saharan Africa, given the low level of education attainment of most countries' labor force, and the urgent need for sustained economic growth at a high level to reduce poverty. In addition, while the universities are quite weak in most SSA countries, they are still often the only national institutions with the skills, equipment and mandate to generate new knowledge, and to adapt knowledge developed elsewhere to the local context. The crucial importance of establishing a deliberate strategy to develop the mid- to high- level human resource base is well illustrated by the economic success of most OECD and East Asian countries. For example, a recent joint UNESCO and OECD study examining the relationship between education and economic growth in sixteen "emerging economies" found that investments in secondary and higher education are more beneficial than previously thought. The study concludes that, once education levels reach a critical threshold, education plays a stronger role in economic growth, and that "high levels of upper-secondary and tertiary attainment are important for human capital to translate into steady growth". The present study is designed to help the government of Uganda and other partners interested in tertiary education in Uganda to better understand how best to support this sector by presenting a comprehensive review of the sector, its achievements, its challenges, and the options for reform. The study is based on new data gathered specifically to examine the governance and management, financing and cost, inputs and outputs of the system. The analysis draws on a wealth of existing data and studies. The report's findings point to the centrality of key reforms to (a) create an enabling environment at the system vi level through legal framework and streamlining of central government agencies; (b) improve public financing of higher education to increase equity, effectiveness, and allow for more institutional autonomy; and (c) strengthen governance and accountability at the institutional level. The Report was developed in close consultation with the Department of Higher Education and a prominent Ugandan researcher, who was later appointed Director of the National Council for Higher Education. Joint activities included the development of a conceptual framework, the drafting of all terms of references, selection of consultants, comments on draft and final reports. Extensive consultation on the draft report was carried out during the Uganda 10th Semi-annual Education Sector Review in November 2003 and comments have been incorporated. Birger Fredriksen Senior Education Advisor, Africa Region. The World Bank vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This report was prepared by Xiaoyan Liang, Task Team Leader, under the supervision of Paud Murphy, Lead Education Specialist, AFTH1, and Dzingai B. Mutumbuka, Sector Manager, AFTH1. Funding for the studies was provided by the Norwegian Education Trust Fund. Team member Harriet Nannyonjo provided valuable support. Peer reviewers including William Saint, Gwangjo Kim, and Prof. A. B. Kasozi provided valuable comments and even helped with sections of the Report. In Uganda, the team worked with the Department of Higher Education in the Ministry of Education and Sports and Prof. Kasozi of the National Council of Higher Education. The team thanks the Uganda Ministry of Education and Sports for having organized extensive consultation on the draft report during the Uganda 10th Semi-annual Education Sector Review in November 2003. Editing was done by Lawrence Mastri and Trish Tierney. We are grateful to the support of the Norwegian Education Trust Fund (NETF) for providing financial support for the preparation of this report. This is the second report on education financed by that Fund, following the publication of the Uganda Post- primary Education Sector Report in 2002. Tables Table 1: Economic and social benefits of higher education 11 Table 2: Tertiary gross enrollment ratio (GER) and gross national enrollment (GNI) per capita in selected countries 13 Table 3: Poverty and social indicators 16 Table 4: Composition of Ugandan labor force 17 Table 5: Growth of outputs 1990­99 18 Table 6: Uganda population projections by age cohorts 2000­05 19 Table 7: Schools, enrollments, and lecturers 2000 21 Table 8: Enrollment and number of schools by ownership 21 Table 9: Primary and secondary coverage in Uganda 22 Table 10: Total education expenditure as a percent of GNP 23 Table 11: Recurrent budget allocation 1998­2004 24 Table 12: Tertiary institutions enrollment by gender 2001/02 25 Table 13: Tertiary gross enrollment ratio 29 Table 14: Household basic socioeconomic indicators 31 Table 15: Percent of repeaters in 2000 32 Table 16: Graduate employment rate 33 Table 17: Wage premiums 34 Table 18: Private and social rates of return on education 35 Table 19: UACE candidates and pass rates by subject (2000) 38 Table 20: Science and technology 38 Table 21: Tertiary science enrollment as percent of total tertiary 39 Table 22: Teacher characteristics, work load, and teacher pay 45 Table 23: Teacher characteristics by type of program 45 Table 24: Teacher pay by type of program and institution 46 Table 25: Teacher characteristics, pay and hours worked in four national teachers colleges 48 Table 26: Access to information 49 Table 27: Tertiary infrastructure 50 Table 28: Quality assurance systems worldwide 57 Table 29: Tertiary institutions recurrent budget 60 Table 30: Public support and student enrollment 61 Table 31: Primary, secondary, BTVET, tertiary in total education budget and shares 64 Table 32: Shares of tertiary budget by definition 64 Table 33: Proportion of income from the government 65 Table 34: Tertiary institutions: public expenditure per pupil (`99/'00) 65 Table 35: Public expenditure per student as percent of GNP per capital 66 Table 36: Regression analysis of household education expenditure ­ UNHS 68 Table 37: Average academic fees by type of program 69 Table 38: Academic fees in selected universities 69 Table 39: Average expenditures per student: public, private, and total (in US$) 70 Table 40: Student Loans Policies and Programs in Selected African Countries 72 ii Figures Figure 1: Uganda educational structure 20 Figure 2: Enrollment by age (from HH survey, all ages) 23 Figure 3: Tertiary enrollment trend (1950-2000) 25 Figure 4: Age-specific tertiary enrollment for universityand all tertiary programs 28 Figure 5: Age-specific tertiary enrollment rates by gender 30 Figure 6: Student:lecturer ratio by program in Makerere University 44 Figure 7: Teacher pay by qualification 47 Figure 8: Student to computer ratio 50 Figure 9: Student to book ratios 51 Figure 10: Education expenditure by level of education 64 Boxes Box 1: The Role of Tertiary Scientific and Technical Education in Germany's Economic Development 40 Box 2: The Role of Tertiary Technical Education in the Economic Development of Japan 40 Box 3: The Role of Tertiary Technical Education in the Development of the Korean Economy 41 Box 4: Examples of tertiary education institutional setup 54 Box 5: Examples of internal governance 55 Annexes Annex 1: Ugandan Institutes of Higher Education 86 Annex 2: Determinants of Tertiary Enrollment 89 Annex 3: List of Institutions Responding to Survey 91 iii ACRONYMS BTVET Business, Technical, and Vocational Education and Training EFAG Education Funding Agency Group ESC Education Service Commission GDP Gross Domestic Product GER Gross Enrollment Ratio GNP Gross National Product HDI Human Development Index HE Higher Education ICT Information and Communication Technology ISAE Institute of Statistics and Applied Economics IDA International Development Association ITEK Institute of Teacher Education at Kyambogo PTC Primary Teacher College MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology MOES Ministry of Education and Sports MOF Ministry of Finance MOES Ministry of Education and Sports MUST Mbarara University of Science and Technology NCHE National Council for Higher Education NTC National Teacher College PTR Pupil Teacher Ratio SSA Sub-Saharan Africa UACE Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education UMU Uganda Martyrs University Nicozi UMI Uganda Management Institute UPE Universal Primary Education UPK Uganda Polytechnic Kyambogo UNHS Uganda National Household Survey UTC Uganda Technical College WDI World Development Indicators iv v EXECUTIVE SUMMARY It is now well-established that higher, or tertiary education1 can contribute significantly to a country's overall development. Both World Bank policy papers on higher education, "Higher Education: The Lessons of Experience" (1991) and "Constructing Knowledge Societies: New Challenges for Tertiary Education" (2002) recognize the potential for higher education to contribute to economic, social development and poverty alleviation. As Uganda continues to work towards universal primary education (UPE)--and increasing secondary education coverage--it is expanding the pool of educated youth who will soon make unprecedented demands for higher education opportunities. In order to meet this challenge, it is critical to understand the status of higher education--its governance, financing, and the quality and quantity of its inputs and outputs. This sector report pulls together all the background studies on tertiary education, including those recently commissioned by the World Bank. It synthesizes the studies to present a comprehensive picture of the Ugandan higher education system, including its past achievements and future challenges, and the options for reform. The report aims to serve as a basis for discussions and national consultations leading to a national higher education strategic plan in Uganda. Demographic, social and economic context Despite its abundant natural resources, Uganda became one of the poorest countries in the world during the turbulent years of Idi Amin (1971-79) and Obote II (1980-85). In 1987, the new government, led by President Museveni, embarked on an economic recovery program aimed at reducing poverty by restoring fiscal discipline and monetary stability and rehabilitating infrastructure (economic, social and institutional). The recovery program encompassed civil service reform, revised investment and incentive structures, and made a rapid move to a market-determined exchange rate. By 2002 Uganda had a population of 24.7 million, with a stable growth rate of 2.6 percent annually. The GNP per capita was US$280, which is still low compared to the average of US$470 for Sub- Saharan Africa. The Ugandan economy is largely informal, with 88 percent of the labor force working outside the formal sector. Uganda is predominantly a rural country--only 13 percent of the population lives in urban areas. Life expectancy at birth is 42 years, which is low compared to the Sub-Saharan average of 46. Adult literacy rates are high for the region at 78 percent for men and 58 percent for women. Infant mortality 1In this report, higher education and tertiary education are used interchangeably, and defined according to the Uganda Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act as "both public and private universities and other tertiary institutions that provide post-secondary (post A level) education, offering courses of study leading to the award of certificates, diplomas and degrees, and conducting research and publishing." 1 rate was 83 per 1000 live birth. Fifty percent of the population has access to improved water sources, which is high for the region. Only 2 out of every 1,000 people in Uganda have access to a daily newspaper, as compared to 12 for Sub-Saharan Africa. Also, only 127 out of 1,000 people have access to radios, 28 out of 1,000 people have televisions, and 2.5 out of 1,000 people have a personal computer. There were only 0.07 Internet hosts for every 10,000 people, 25,000 Internet users, and one single secure Internet server in the entire country. The HIV/AIDS epidemic continues to affect Uganda despite the severe reduction in prevalence rates to 8 percent in 1999. AIDS-related deaths result in high attrition of the labor force and a large number of orphans. The implication of the epidemic is especially serious for the education sector in terms of its teaching force, the education and care of the orphans, and the school-based HIV/AIDS prevention programs. Tertiary institutions face serious challenges of responding to increasing social demand for higher education while still making up for the losses from HIV/AIDS. They must provide the human capital required to keep the government and businesses functioning, the economy moving forward, and to produce teachers and heath care workers. Uganda Education sector overview The Ugandan education system follows a 7-4-2-3 pattern: seven years of primary education, followed by four years of lower secondary or "Ordinary" level, two years of upper secondary or "Advanced" level, and a further three to five years of tertiary education. In parallel, there exists a technical and 2 vocational track, including three-year technical and farm programs that follow immediately after primary education and three- or four-year post-secondary technical programs. The entire system comprises more than 7.6 million primary students, about half a million secondary and technical vocational students, and about 86,000 tertiary students, with almost 200,000 teachers teaching at all levels of the formal education system. From 1960 to 2000 the proportion of the population over fifteen years old who had received some years of primary education increased from 27 percent to 43 percent, in part due to the government's push for UPE coverage. Tertiary programs can be grouped into universities, national teachers' colleges, colleges of commerce and technology, and other tertiary institutions. Although the system is still dominated by traditional, full-time-attendance universities and teacher training colleges, the structure of the Higher Education (HE) system is evolving to become more complex as the system allows for the establishment of all kinds of tertiary institutions. Degree programs are offered only in universities where students complete a three to five year program with minimum standards. Colleges and other tertiary institutions offer diplomas, and their programs usually last two to three years. In 2003 the tertiary education sector in Uganda, including both private and public, enrolled a total of about 86,000 students. The tertiary institutions include 16 licensed public and private universities, 10 national teachers' colleges, 13 colleges of commerce, 7 technical colleges, 1 forestry college, 2 co- 2Most of the degree programs are for three years. However law and agricultural degrees require four years and medicinal degrees require five years of study. 2 operative colleges, 3 hotel and tourism institutes, 12 management institutes, 10 health and medical schools, 3 agricultural and animal husbandry colleges, 1 fishery training institute, 1 meteorological school, and 4 theological colleges. Uganda's tertiary system is growing very fast, both in the number of institutions and the size of total enrollment. The demand for tertiary education will continue to grow as the success of the UPE campaign works its way through the education system and as the target tertiary age group expands. In 2000/2001, the education budget reached 32 percent of the total government recurrent budget, with 11 percent of the education budget allocated to public universities. If including the budget devoted to national teacher colleges, other tertiary technical institutions, and Ministry overheads, the total recurrent budget share was about 16 percent in 2000/2001. The government subsidy per primary student averaged about US$22, as compared to US$148 per secondary student and US$500 per university student in public universities. This results in a ratio of 1:7:23. Overall there is not yet a vision or strategic plan for the future of higher education in Uganda. Linkage between higher education and the government's economic development strategy is not clear either. However, there is agreement that quality higher education in Uganda needs to be expanded in an equitable way to respond to growing social demand for higher education, as well as the needs of a globalized economy. The Government of Uganda is committed to embarking on higher education reforms and has already started a series of consultations toward a vision for higher education in Uganda and a higher education strategic plan for the next 10 years. Legal framework and governance There was no overall legal framework pertaining to the entire tertiary education sector until 2001, when the Ugandan Government passed the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act. The Act defined "tertiary" and "higher" to include "both public and private universities and other tertiary institutions that provide post-secondary (post A level) education, offering courses of study leading to the award to certificates, diplomas and degrees, and conducting research and publishing". The Act's goal is to establish a system of governing institutions of higher education so that same or similar courses offered by different institutions of higher education are made equal across the system--while respecting each institution's autonomy and academic freedom. The Act also establishes a National Council of Higher Education for quality assurance at all tertiary institutions. The functions of the council will include (a) advising the Minister of Education and Sports, (b) establishing an accreditation system, (c) investigating complaints, (d) evaluating national manpower needs, (e) ensuring minimum standards of education, (f) setting national admissions standards, (g) ensuring that HE institutions have adequate physical structures, (h) publishing information about HE institutions, and (i) determining equivalence of academic and professional degrees and credits between institutions. However, the legal framework is not yet comprehensive. Major gaps include financing strategies, principles for allocating public funds, incentives for private institutions, accountability and operationalized quality assurance mechanisms. Amendments will have to be made in the near future to provide legal basis in these important areas. 3 Based on the definition of tertiary education by the Act, at the central level the three bodies now supervising tertiary education in Uganda are the Higher Education Department, the Department of Business, Technical, and Vocational Education (BTVET), and the teacher education department within the Ministry of Education and Sports (MOES). However, there is little communication or collaboration among the three departments, and none provides universal quality assurance for Uganda's tertiary institutions. While it can be argued that the teacher education sector is more distinctive, the management responsibility for non-university and non-teacher college tertiary institutions is blurred and seems to fall under both the Higher Education Department and the BTVET. Further, the role of the newly established National Council needs to be clarified vis-à-vis the three departments. At the institutional level, most higher education institutions have a governing board, although the governance system differs greatly by the kind of institution, and most board members do not have the power or the capability to voice their opinions. Hence, most decisions are made directly by the heads of the institutions. Further, non-university tertiary institutions are less independent from the Government and often get directives from the Ministry of Education and Sports. Institutional governance is lacking flexibility for reform due to either too much complexity and autonomy in some public universities or to direct government controls and regulations in other tertiary institutions. Financial autonomy is still limited across public institutions, though universities tend to enjoy more autonomy as compared to other tertiary institutions. Currently, there is not a functioning quality assurance mechanism, which contributes to lack of accountability throughout the system. Lack of quality assurance mechanisms can be primarily attributed to the unbalanced power structure (decision-making rests mainly with the heads) within institutions as well as the confusion about the roles of the Higher Education Department, BTVET, Teacher Education, and the National Council. There is also no functioning management information system. Encouragingly, though, the National Council for Higher Education has already taken the initiative to review and develop registration and guidelines for accrediting universities within the current legal framework. Tertiary system and its performance Coverage at tertiary level is very low, with a GER in 2000 of slightly be about 2-3 percent. Though coverage itself should not be the sole justification for expansion, such low level of enrollment (comparatively) does indicate that further improvement can be made. The most important criteria for admitting students were the examination results of the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (A- level exams). Those students who do well on the exam usually come from wealthier families who can afford to pay for elite, university preparatory-level public and private education, or who live in urban areas with better quality primary and secondary schools. For example, it was shown that students from the highest income group, which made up less than one percent of the total population of Uganda, took 42 percent of the places at Makerere University. Tertiary students also more often have parents with higher levels of educational attainment. Access to government sponsorship--a scholarship where students pay no academic fees--is highly competitive and based solely on the A-level examination results. The government now annually 4 awards about 4,000 scholarships. Most of the scholarship recipients tend to come from relatively better-to-do families and concentrate in Makerere University. Still, in Makerere University, about one third of students are sponsored by the government and the other two thirds are private fee-paying. Uganda needs to improve access to higher education for women and the poor. Only 37 percent of all tertiary students are female. Moreover, females have less access to the more competitive programs, such as medicine, commerce, agriculture, natural sciences, etc. Gender disparity also manifests itself in the lower proportion of female teachers employed in the tertiary sector. Few institutions keep any records of graduates' whereabouts, and therefore little can be said about the external efficiency of the HE system as far as post-graduation job placement. Wage premiums were 16 percent for primary, 24 percent for lower-secondary level, 15 percent for upper-secondary, and 8 percent for tertiary education. This implies that, for every additional year of tertiary education, earnings increase by 8 percent. When taking into account the costs of tertiary education, this can be translated into a high social return of 13 percent and private return of 24 percent for tertiary education. The high return for tertiary education provides further justification for the expansion of tertiary system, though close monitoring and research of labor market supply and demand will be necessary. Tertiary education inputs The higher education curriculum in Uganda is outmoded and irrelevant to the needs of the current economy, with much of it being centrally determined, specialized, and often theoretical. The changing nature of the economy is leading to less focus on specific academic disciplines, and more emphasis on multi-disciplinary areas, such as business studies and tourism. Only about 13­17 percent of tertiary enrollment is in science and technology, which is far below the norm in both an OECD and regional context. It is very far below the average of the fast-growing middle-income countries of the world that have shown the best prospects for growing at a pace that will bring them into the stratum of the world's most developed nations. Only selected elite universities are well advanced in information and communication technologies (ICT) infrastructure, including connection to the Internet. The average student to computer ratio for institutions surveyed shows a figure of one computer to fifty students and, in some cases, a single computer is shared by over 300 students. Universities in Uganda today operate in overcrowded and deteriorating physical facilities, with limited, obsolete, or irrelevant library materials. Academic staff The management of academic and non-academic staff differs by institution. In the public universities, the Ministry of Public Service (MOPS) plays a role in determining the number of established posts for each public university; however, once the number of government-financed posts are established, the university determines appointments and promotions. For other non-university public institutions, the Education Service Commission (ESC) appoints both academic and non-academic staff. The subsequent allocation of staff to individual institutions is made by the MOES--with only limited involvement of the institution. Currently, staff promotions are treated as new appointments and made as such by the ESC. 5 Across institutions, there seems to be little pressure to ensure that staff members are used effectively. Staff often work without clear job descriptions and some who do not contribute fully to the work of their institution nevertheless work extensively outside their institution. Student/lecturer ratios range from 2­56, depending on the university and demand for different programs, with most ratios lying within the range of 18­20. Some claim that universities with low student-lecturer ratios have better qualities of teaching and learning; however, when student-lecturer ratio becomes very low, the unit cost of running the university becomes high, and the institution may not be financially viable without subsidies from public funds. Mbarara University may be such a case in point. Average lecturer pay varies by the type of institution and program. In general, university lecturers and lecturers with better qualifications are more highly paid than lecturers in other tertiary institutions. Performance-based bonus systems are still rare, though they are starting to be introduced. Tertiary lecturers in Uganda earn on average a comfortable annual salary compared to the local living standards, about 11 times the per capita GDP of US$280. However, compared to international standards, this pay scale is low, and brain drain remains a problem (anecdotally). The majority of tertiary institutions do not provide funding for on-going staff development. Donor funding for staff development seems to concentrate on a few elite public universities such as Makerere University. Cost and financing of tertiary education in Uganda In Uganda, the two main sources of financing for higher education are the government and private funds. Private expenditures used to play a relatively minor role. However, the proportion of financing contributed from private sources have increased recently. Public funds for HE are allocated entirely to public institutions. While public universities can supplement its revenue with fees and other private donations, private institutions rely exclusively on fees and other donations. Mirroring the three departments of Higher Education Department, BTVET, and teacher education deparment, the public funds are disbursed to the public institutions in three distinctive ways: For the four public universities (Makerere University, Mbarara University, Kyambogo University, and Gulu University) which are clearly under the Department of Higher Education, government funds are disbursed to public institutions in two blocks: one for recurrent and the other for development budget. For recurrent budget, each public institution receives from the Ministry of Education and Sports a block grant or "subvention". The amount of the subvention is calculated based on the number of government students and the "unit cost" which the Ministry thinks is reasonable for that particular institution. Often the government "unit cost" is set very high, more than twice the amount of annual fee paid by a private fee paying student, as it usually includes a substantial proportion of welfare costs. Johnstone (2003) calls this scheme "an even more aggressive dual track tuition policy, arguably the most striking single example of institutional cost-sharing in SSA." For example, Makerere University received a subvention of Ush26 billion for FY04, which is based on about 9000 students at a unit cost of Ush3million per student (private students in Makerere pay an annual fee of about Ush1-1.5million). Almost exclusively, public institutions pay their regular staff out of the subvention. Public universities also receive development budgets from the Ministry, 6 though the development budget fluctuates significantly from year to year and tend to favor Makerere University in general. The other tertiary institutions are administratively under the Department of Business, Technical, and Vocational Education and Training. In FY03, all public technical colleges, colleges of commerce and national health training colleges had received recurrent budget support from the Ministry in one block. It is not clear how the subsidy to each institution is calculated, but most likely it is based on the number of public posts in the institution. The tertiary institutions also received development budget. However, the availability and disbursement of development budget to these institutions fluctuates much more than those to the universities. In other words, institutions almost cannot count on the Ministry for development budget support. The 10 National Teacher Colleges (NTCs) fall under the Teacher Education Department. They all receive both recurrent and development budget from the Ministry. For recurrent, wages and non- wages budgets are separated. Again, the amount of wage subsidy is based on the staff pay roll, and the amount of recurrent budget is based on other inputs. Comparatively, NTCs have the least financial autonomy. In short, institutions receive much of the public funding based on the inputs at the institution--that is, the staff; it is not related to what they actually produce in terms of outputs--namely, the quality and quantity of graduates. The system provides no incentives for institutions to deliver education more efficiently, and severely limits the flexibility of institutions to respond to their local circumstances or to change. A second reason why public funding is not being used effectively is that though the government now sponsors 4,000 scholarships annually to the best-performing secondary graduates for the entire duration of higher education, it does not determine the areas of specialty of those students. The institution often decide the student's major. And, many times, the institutions place government- sponsored students in the least demanded majors in order to maximize profit from private-fee-paying students. As a result, the program is not producing the manpower outputs in those fields of study most needed for the social and economic well-being of the country. The current use of funds is not effective toward achieving the fundamental goals of higher education. The public funds are not used equitably either as those who perform better in A-level examinations usually graduate from better performing government boarding schools whose fees are so high that only the better-off families can afford them. According to one MoES study, 65 percent of the total scholarships were awarded to students from the 20 top ranked A-level schools. The dual-track tuition policy thus tends to favor students from better-to-do family backgrounds. Despite the increased enrollment in higher education institutions, the share of the education budget devoted to higher education institutions further declined in fiscal year 2000/2001; the government allocated about 11 percent of the total education budget to public universities (16 percent if including NTCs, other tertiary institutions, and overheads). Therefore, not including the overhead expenditures by the MoES Central offices, public direct transfer per student for the major public universities stood roughly at US$500 per student, or 155 percent of the GNP per capita for the same year. This level of public subsidy per student is smaller than the Sub-Saharan African average of 422 percent, but much bigger than the world average of 77 percent and the OECD average of 26 percent. 7 Another important source of financing is fees paid by students. Students enrolled in private institutions are 100 percent fee-paying. And about two thirds of the students enrolled in public universities are fee-paying. Private expenditure on tertiary education has increased dramatically in the last decade. In fact, the proportion of tertiary financing contributed by private sector now almost equals that contributed by the government. On average, the individual household contribution for sending one child to university is significant at US$477 annually. Having one member enrolled in a post-secondary or diploma program means an increased annual expenditure of between US$140 and US$237. Yet despite the high level of private expenditure, government subsidy per pupil is also very high, especially in the public universities. Public expenditure per public university student is almost as much as the private expenditure. Considering that most of the beneficiaries are indeed from the wealthy families of the society, the tertiary financing system is inequitable and regressive. It needs to be recognized and emphasized that financing mechanisms apart from raising funds, can be used to achieve policy goals. Reforms in public financing mechanisms are important because the mechanisms through which government allocate its funds alters institutional behavior and affects the way the funds are used. Policy framework and strategic plan for higher education The Ministry must develop a policy framework and strategies for the tertiary sector. The policy framework and strategies should have goals that are realistic, laid out, affordable and agreeable to all stakeholders. There also should be targets and indicators in coverage, quality, and efficiency over the next ten years. The strategic plan should lay out the means or strategies including a financing strategy for reaching those goals. Broad policy options to be considered in the forthcoming policy framework and strategic plan The upcoming Higher Education Policy Framework and Strategies should consider the following policy options: Creating an enabling environment for higher education · The University and Other Tertiary Institutions Act needs to be reviewed, disseminated, and implemented. The Act should clearly define the role of the National Council of Higher Education, vis à vis the Department of Higher Education and the Department of Business, Technical and Vocational Education and Training. Specially, the Act should specify whether the Council will be merely an advisory body or it will be empowered to raise and allocate funds. Further, the act should incorporate financing strategies, principles for the allocation of public funds, provision and incentive for private institutions, and accountability and detailed quality assurance mechanisms to be employed. 8 · Clearly defining the roles of the Department of Higher Education and the Department of Business, Technical and Vocational Education and Training. These two departments overlap with each other in the management of non-university technical and vocational institutions. There are two options for consideration. The first option is to have the Department of Higher Education only be responsible for the universities and the Department of Business, Technical and Vocational Education and Training be responsible for all other non-university institutions both secondary and tertiary level. The second option, in line with the Act, is to have the Department of Higher Education (perhaps should be renamed Department of Tertiary Education) be responsible for all tertiary-level institutions including both universities and non- universities and the Department of Commercial, Technical and Vocational Education be responsible only for secondary-level technical and vocational schools. Both options have their merits and the Government will need to consult widely on this and reach concensus. · The role of the National Council for Higher Education needs to be further defined and its capacity strengthened. Should the Council be merely an advisory body or with some "teeth" and power in raising and expending funds? The council's most important functions will be information dissemination, advising the ministry on policy issues, and quality assurance services, including registration and accreditation. The government should consider allocating a proportion of total tertiary education budget to the council for these purposes. These funds can then in turn be supplemented by fees charged to the institutions for the services rendered by the council. · Encourage the collection, analysis, and use of labor market information. Currently there are no mechanisms for the higher education system to collect, analyze, and use information from the labor market. For example, there is very little information on graduate destinations and employment. This seriously limits the ability of the higher education system to adapt itself so that the skills of its graduates will be demanded by the labor market. While the National Council can certainly lead in such effort, institutions should also try to establish its own information system to collect, analyze, and use labor market information for policy purposes. Reforms in public financing of higher education to increase equity, effectiveness, and allow for more institutional autonomy · The government's most effective strategy is the way in which it deploys its own funds. The first option, without increasing the overall funding for tertiary education, is to improve the effectiveness of use of the current public funds allocated to the tertiary sector. The state now funds higher education through block grants (based on history and political influences, rather than objective criteria) to public universities and directly paying lecturers and other inputs to other tertiary institutions. This method 9 could be changed to funding outputs and funding key strategic areas. To link public financing of HE closer to national economic development--while granting more financial autonomy to institutions--the government should consider using the following funding mechanisms with objective funding criteria: o Determine an appropriate level of public recurrent subsidy per student for public institutions. The level of subsidy per student could differ by the kind of institution and program of study. However, the level of public subsidy per student should be equal to the fees charged to private students. This can be accomplished mainly by removing the welfare component of the current government unit subsidy. In other words, it is time for the government to consider a single-track tuition policy. It may even be possible that students could attend institutions of their choice and both public and private institutions will benefit from such public capitation grant. o Target government scholarships to critical subjects, such as science and technology, that are proven to stimulate the economy but are clearly under- supplied. o Reserve an amount of development funds and let the public institutions compete to access these funds for capital development if efficiency and quality indicators are achieved. Again, this can also be extended to benefit private institutions in the future. o Establish a research fund to support strategic areas for development. · To improve the equity of public financing, the government needs to target scholarships to poor but worthy students. Increasing the private contribution to higher education financing · Increase cost recovery so that the academic fees charged are closer to real costs; at the same time increase the number of government scholarships and target the scholarships to the real needy, and in the future consider the student loan scheme. · Encourage private partnership. · Encourage the institutions to raise their own funds. Increasing the share of the education budget devoted to tertiary · Having maximized the utility of existing public resources and mobilized all the available private funds, the government may need to further consider increasing the share of the education budget for universities from the current 11 percent to close to the SSA average of 16 percent. Of course, this will have to be balanced with priorities of the entire education sector and must be a national decision. 10 Strengthening institutional governance and accountability Although governance structure as stipulated in the new Act ensures the participation of key stakeholders in the decision-making of the institutions, implementation has been uneven. As a result, most institutions are still governed by institutional heads, with little involvement of other stakeholders. As the institutions gain more autonomy, especially in the generation and allocation of their own resources, governing bodies must be representative and effective. The new Act also states that each institution must produce an annual report. The government, through the National Council of Higher Education, may want to provide more details on the format and content of these reports. In addition, most tertiary institutions lack a well functioning management information system, which seriously impairs their ability to produce such a report and compromises the accountability of the institutions. Institutions should establish management information systems, at least on the financial side. The development of quality assurance mechanisms and system-wide management information system including labor market information by the National Council for Higher Education will promote a culture of accountability and relevance for higher education. Disbursement of government grants could conceivably to linked to the assessment of institutions based on agreed criteria. The information collected on the demand and supply of the labor market will in turn be fed into the higher education curriculum and enhance the relevance of the subsector. Academic staff appointment and curriculum The reforms in public financing and increasing the institutional autonomy will have important and positive impacts on staff appointments, curriculum, and academic excellence at the institutional level. When institutions receive one block of public funds based on student enrollment, the institution should use the money in a way so that inputs can be maximized. The institutions will also ensure that programs are relevant and of high quality so that they attract more students paying high fees. For example, once public funding is changed, the institutions will quickly learn that there is an advantage to developing a strategy for recruiting and retaining high quality staff. Increases in efficiency may take the form of doubling the student-staff ratio (to bring it closer to the international norm) and halving the total number of academic staff and doubling their pay. By rewarding staff, there will be less need for them to seek external employment. Even if no changes were made along these lines, there would still be an advantage to developing an appraisal system for academic and non-academic staff, since there now appears to be virtually none. This would dramatically improve the accountability of staff time and hence reduce abuse. It should also help secure a better contribution from staff and provide better inputs into decisions about promotion and staff development. 11 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Impact of higher education Though relatively high shares of education budgets are devoted to higher-or-tertiary education in the developing world, the sub-sector itself is less studied and therefore less understood than primary education. The primary education sub-sector has shown higher rates of return in developing countries, so there have been more efforts to study, expand and improve it. And because literacy is so fundamental to a minimally educated labor force and an informed voting public, coverage of primary education has taken prominence over secondary and tertiary coverage. Evidence over the last two decades has made clear that secondary and tertiary education contributes significant and are essential to a country's economic and social development. The economic success of many OECD and East Asian countries hinged on a deliberate strategy to develop the mid- to high-level human resource base. Both the 1991 and the 2002 World Bank publication, Higher Education: The Lessons of Experience (1991) and Constructing Knowledge Societies: New Challenges for Tertiary Education (2002), emphasize the importance of tertiary education. The 2002 report summarizes the economic and social benefits of tertiary education in the following table: Table 1: Economic and social benefits of higher education (from Constructing Knowledge Societies: New Challenges for Tertiary Education, World Bank 2002). Benefits Private Public Higher salaries Greater productivity Employment National and regional development Economic Higher savings Reduced reliance on government financial support Improved working conditions Increased consumption Personal and professional mobility Increased potential for transformation From low-skill industries to knowledge-based economy Improved quality of life for self and Nation building and development of leadership children Democratic participation; increased consensus; Better decision-making perception that the society is based on fairness Social and opportunity for all citizens Improved personal status Social mobility Increased educational opportunities Greater social cohesion and reduced crime rates Healthier lifestyle and higher life Improved health expectancy Improved basic and secondary education The report underlines that "tertiary education supports knowledge-based economic growth through general training of the labor force and through advanced training and research linked to a country's national innovation system." Recently, investments in tertiary education have been justified by their 12 contribution to teacher training, a prerequisite for achieving the aims of the Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). More recent evidence comes from a 2002 joint UNESCO and OECD study examining the relationship between education and economic growth in sixteen "emerging economies," which found that investments in secondary and higher education--not primary education alone--are more beneficial than most knew. The study concludes that, once education levels reach a critical threshold, education plays a stronger role in economic growth, and that "high levels of upper-secondary and tertiary attainment are important for human capital to translate into steady growth (UNESCO/OECD, Financing Education--Investments and Returns, 2002). The role of tertiary education is especially important in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where average tertiary enrollment rate is the lowest in the world, and where the proportion of the population living in poverty is the highest. According to the most recent UNESCO and World Bank education statistics, the average gross tertiary enrollment ratio in 2000 was only 3.6 percent for Sub-Saharan Africa, compared to 8.8% for East Asia, 44 percent for Europe and Central Asia, 21 percent for Latin America and Caribbean, 22 percent for the Middle East and North Africa, and 10 percent for South Asia. The region's low level of tertiary participation means that it will not have the human resources to participate in the global economy. 1.2 Purposes of the study Until now, there has been no systematic study of the tertiary education sector in Uganda. Most research has highlighted the premiere university, Makerere University, and ignored the rest of the system, so that little is known about other higher learning institutions. And as demand for higher education has increased, there has been neither vision nor planning, as evident in the haphazard manner in which institutions of higher education have been set up in recent years. The system lacks a proper regulatory, financing, and quality assurance framework, and the role of the newly transferred institutions from other ministries is not clear. Kasozi (2002) described the Uganda higher education system in the following way: Uganda's higher education sector cannot be rightly called a system like you would that of the Republic of Ireland or the Province of Ontario in Canada. A system is a group of related parts working together as a whole to perform a particular defined task. The various institutions that constitute higher education in Uganda neither coordinate their activities nor work in harmony to produce defined outcomes. Each institution works independently to achieve its own ends. There is no horizontal integration amongst the institutions. Neither is there any vertical integration whereby credits from one institution can be transferred to, or upgraded by, another higher institution. Uganda currently has a small tertiary education sector under the overall supervision of the Department of Higher Education, the Department of Business, Technical, and Vocational Education and Training (BTVET), and the Teacher Education Department of the Ministry of Education and Sports. Tertiary 13 gross enrollment in Uganda remains around 2 percent. As mentioned, this level of coverage is very low, even compared to the already low average of 3.9 percent for Sub-Saharan Africa and the world average of 17 percent. Low tertiary education enrollment rates in Uganda show that the system is inequitable and inefficient. Mayanja (1998) found that most of the students at Makerere University enjoying performance-based subsidies and privately sponsored programs were from wealthy and learned families. The system is not operating at an optimal level--that is, it could be achieving higher gross enrollment rates (GER) based on its income level of US$280. For example, in 1997, among other countries with similar per capita income levels (US$270­340), the tertiary GER ranged from a high of 7.9 percent in Vietnam to a low of 1.2 percent in Cambodia (Table 2). Uganda's tertiary GER is only slightly higher than that of the Central Africa Republic and Cambodia. Within Africa, both Nigeria and Sudan achieved higher tertiary GER than Uganda, even though they had similar levels of GNI per capita. Table 2: Tertiary gross enrollment ratio (GER) and gross national enrollment (GNI) per capita in selected countries GER Tertiary GNI/PC Nigeria 4 270 Cambodia 1.2 280 Sudan 4.7 280 Uganda 3 280 Central African Republic 1.9 310 Yemen, Rep. 4.3 330 Bangladesh 5.7 340 Vietnam 7.8 340 Source: World Education Report, 2000. Although policy-making should not be based on such crude comparative statistics, it is still theoretically true that, given current economic conditions, Uganda's overall tertiary GER could reach a minimum of 4­5 percent of the higher education age group, and the country could adjust these expectation upwards as the economy grows. This study thus needs to investigate which factors are contributing to the low tertiary enrollment. The Uganda government now intends to move from a structure with a single dominant national university to a more diversified system of both public and private institutions, providing higher quality education to more qualified applicants. To make informed policy decisions, it is critical to understand the current status of higher education--its overall governance and legal framework, its financing, and its impact on quality and quantity of inputs and outputs. 1.3 Sector report development process Against this background, the MOES decided to prepare a long-overdue Comprehensive Policy Framework and Strategic Plan for tertiary education. This plan would be within the framework of national policy objectives of modernization, democratization, poverty eradication, privatization, 14 national integration, and social transformation. In late 2000 the Ministry initiated policy dialogues with the Education Funding Agency Group (EFAG). EFAG and the Ministry agreed to work together to prepare (a) a synthesis report to take stock of the current status of Higher Education (HE) provision, (b) a policy framework and strategies, followed by (c) an implementation plan for approximately the next ten years. They also agreed that, as preparation for the synthesis report, the Ministry would complete terms of references (with support from EFAG members) for a series of inter-related diagnostic studies on higher education. In addition, EFAG members would provide financial and technical support to the studies. At the same time, the two agencies agreed upon a process to consult with key stakeholders, hire a consultant to prepare the final policy framework and costed strategies for the sector, and present the policy framework and strategies at a future education sector review meeting. With support from EFAG, including the World Bank (through the World Bank budget and the Norwegian Trust Fund), DFID, Ireland Aid, and the European Union, the following studies were conducted between September 2000 and December 2002: · The Macro Study and a Supplemental Note, which position the Ugandan tertiary education system in a comparative global context and in the context of the country's economic development strategy · The Academic Management and Financing Study, which evaluates the efficacy of existing organizational and management structures of the tertiary education system, and examines the current schemes of tertiary education financing · The Micro Study I, which describes current coverage and equity, and examines internal and external efficiency · An Issues Paper on higher education for economic development in Uganda · The Unit Cost Study for tertiary institutions in Uganda which surveys selected tertiary institutions and provides information on the recurrent costs. In order to expose the Ugandan tertiary education policymakers to current trends in higher education, and to learn from the experiences of other countries, study tours were conducted to Ireland, South Korea and Singapore. All activities were conducted in close consultation with the Department of Higher Education and a then prominent Ugandan researcher, who was later appointed Director of National Council for Higher Education. Activities include the development of a framework, the drafting of all terms of references, selection of consultants, and comments on draft and final reports. This sector report is the so-called "synthesis" report that pulls together all the commissioned studies on tertiary education to serve as a background paper for the consultative process. It tries to present a comprehensive picture of Ugandan higher, or tertiary, education, its achievements, its challenges, and the options for reform. However, the synthesis report does not offer detailed policy recommendations. 15 To address this, the National Council for Higher Education will prepare a Strategic Plan, which is based on this synthesis report as well as extensive consultations. This current study treats the Uganda tertiary education system as a whole, describing both universities and other tertiary programs and trends within them. However, throughout the report, we highlight Uganda's premiere public university, Makerere University, not only because Makerere's student enrollment comprises one-third of the entire tertiary sector, but also because there has been much more data collected for and research conducted on Makerere University than for any of the other tertiary institutions. 1.4 Data sources The study used data from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data sources include readily available annual Education Statistical Abstracts from the Ministry of Education and Sports, budget information from the Ministry of Finance, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, the Integrated Uganda Household Survey 1999/2000, and other institutional data collected on unit costs, teacher utilization, and student achievement. Secondary data refer to data and analysis contained in the consultant reports listed in Section 1.3 and any other past research done on Ugandan education. 1.5 Definition of higher or tertiary education In accordance with the recent Uganda Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act, we define higher education, or tertiary education, as "both public and private universities and other tertiary institutions providing post-secondary (post-A-level) education, offering courses of study leading to the award of certificates, diplomas and degrees, and conducting research and publishing." The Education Policy Review Commission Review Report (1989) stated that "the terms tertiary and higher education are used interchangeably to refer to advanced level of education beyond a full course of secondary education." 1.6 Organization of the sector report The remainder of the report is organized into nine sections. Section 2 provides a summary of major demographic and socio-economic indicators in order to put the subsequent analysis of Ugandan higher education in context. Section 3 surveys the Ugandan education sector, emphasizing the tertiary subsector. Section 4 describes the performance of the tertiary system, in terms of general coverage and coverage for the female and the poor as well as internal efficiency and labor market outcomes. Section 5 assesses curriculum, academic staff, access to information, communication, technology, and infrastructure, and Section 6 focuses on the governance of tertiary education in Uganda, including 16 regulatory framework, institutional autonomy (academic freedom), accountability, and quality assurance issues. Section 7 focuses on costs and financing of higher education in Uganda, describing the budgeting process and public and private expenditures. Section 8 then outlines some of the reforms and innovations at Makerere University. Section 9 summarizes the report and offers its conclusions, and, finally, Section 10 proposes policy options consistent with the national goals towards improving higher education. 17 2. DEMOGRAPHIC AND ECONOMIC CONTEXT OF TERTIARY EDUCATION 2.1. Background After the turbulent years of the Idi Amin (1971­79) and Obote II (1980­85) regimes, the new government, led by President Museveni, embarked on an economic recovery program to reduce poverty by restoring fiscal discipline and monetary stability, and rehabilitating infrastructure (economic, social, and institutional). The program included civil service reform, revised investment and incentive structures, and a rapid move to market-determined exchange rates. The impact of the combination of government-led reform and development assistance has been impressive, as reflected by sustained real GDP growth and a 21 percent drop in poverty (headcount index) to 44 percent in the five-year period since 1992 (World Bank). Appleton (2001) further confirmed the reduction in poverty by comparing the 1992 and 2000 household survey data. He found a marked fall in consumption-based poverty in Uganda. Table 3 indicates that, by 2001, Uganda had a GNP per capita of US$280, which was still low compared to the average of US$470 for Sub-Saharan Africa and US$430 for all low-income countries. Uganda is predominantly a rural country--only 13 percent of the population lives in urban areas. Life expectancy at birth is 42 years old, which is low compared to the Sub-Saharan average of 46. Adult illiteracy rates are 22 percent for men and 42 percent for women, lower than the averages for Sub- Saharan Africa. Infant mortality rate was 83 per 1,000 live births. Fifty percent of the population has access to improved water sources, which is high when compared with 43 percent for Sub-Saharan Africa but low when compared to 64 percent for all low-income countries. Table 3: Poverty and social indicators 2001 Uganda Sub-Saharan Low-income Africa Countries Population 24.7 674 2,500 GNP per capita (US$) 280 470 430 Population growth rate 2.6 2.3 1.8 Labor force growth rate 2.7 2.6 2.3 Urban population 15 32 31 Life expectancy at birth 42 46 59 Illiteracy rate (adult male) 22 29 28 Illiteracy rate (adult female) 42 45 46 Infant mortality (per 1000 live births) 83 92 77 Access to improved water source 50 55 76 ( percent of population) Source: World Bank Development Indicators, 2002. 18 By 2002 Uganda had an estimated population of 24.7 million, up from 16.4 million in 1991. The average annual growth rate is 2.6 percent. This population growth rate, among the highest in the world, is a major obstacle to achieving poverty reduction and realizing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Several contextual factors have a direct bearing on the current status and future design of the tertiary system in Uganda. These include the government economic development strategy, the structure of its economy and its labor market, the social demand for higher education, and the impact of HIV/AIDS. 2.2. Economic development strategy and tertiary education Uganda does not have an explicit economic development strategy. However, it has a very well developed strategy for poverty alleviation, the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP), which has become the basis for Uganda's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper and the subsequent Poverty Reduction Support Credit financed by IDA. Nevertheless, there is a definite policy to move the economy away from central planning towards market-oriented principles. The government has also declared that it does not believe in developing the traditional concept of "manpower planning," and has no intention of producing any such strategic plan--although there is a policy document that states that the government would like to give priority to expanding science and technology manpower by the year 2025. Despite this reluctance to develop manpower goals, the government realizes the value of having an overall framework for providing higher education. For example, the recent Higher Education Act gives the newly established National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) a role in evaluating national manpower needs for future decisions about HE. 2.3. Economic structure Uganda has a very large informal economy, with 88 percent of the labor force working outside the formal sector. Even within the formal economy, there is a high proportion of own-account and household workers. This means that any higher education strategy should recognize that higher education could drive the economy, by building upon the entrepreneurial spirit of the workforce. Such strategies could encourage collaborations between institutions to help graduates think of themselves as future job creators rather than simply job seekers. Table 4: Composition of Ugandan labor force Percentage of the population in the labor force 46.1 percent Percentage of the labor force in the formal sector 12 percent Percentage of the formal labor force in the public sector 24.4 percent Percentage of the formal labor force in the private sector 66.7 percent Percentage of the formal labor force unemployed 7.3 percent Source: Keating, Jack. 2001. Firm Demand for Post Primary Qualifications in Uganda. 19 Designers of higher education policy should also keep in mind the evolving structure of the economy. Uganda has recently been applauded as a high economic performer in the region. Gross domestic product maintained an average growth rate of 7.2 percent from 1990 to 1999, compared to the world averages of 3.5 percent for middle-income countries and 2.3 percent for high-income countries. Real GDP growth in 2002/03 is estimated at 4.9 percent. Fortunately, Uganda can benefit from the experiences of dozens of countries that have already navigated this juncture--a prototypical pattern has emerged from this collective experience. With income growth, performance varies by sector. This is mostly because higher income fuels greater demand for urban-based industrial and service sector outputs. Labor therefore migrates to the urban sectors, responding to a call for more workers voiced through higher urban wages. As workers leave the countryside, self-subsistence agriculture is rapidly displaced by large-scale production. The remaining rural inhabitants must then learn to feed not only themselves, but also the growing urban sector, which produces for itself, for its rural countrymen, and for export to foreign consumers. All of this structural transformation requires higher productivity--income per person can only rise if output per person increases. This is where the link to higher education comes in. Increases in output per worker are achieved through efficiency improvements, technological advances, and higher capital-labor ratios. At the workplace, this means planning the production process, as well as employing more expensive and more complex equipment for all workers. Whether it involves robotics on the shop floor or computerized reservations at the hotel, people must learn about sophisticated tools. The people who use and maintain them need more basic skills and on-the-job training. The people who design tools and manage the systems that employ them need higher education. This pattern is slowly emerging in Uganda. While agriculture grew an average 3.7 percent in the 1990s, its rate of growth fell far behind that of industry, especially the manufacturing and service sectors, which grew respectively at average rates of 12.7 percent, 14.2 percent, and 8.1 percent. The real GDP growth in 2002/03 is 4.9 percent. However, some sectors grew more strongly, including manufacturing at 6.6 percent, and the wholesale and retail trade and transport and communication sectors, which both grew at 9.7 percent. (Budget Speech, 2003). Economists have every expectation that these sectors will continue to grow at similar rates. This means that the economy will urgently need middle-level skills. A focus on science, technology, and engineering will coincide with the general trend of the economy, and can bring Uganda in line with successful international examples of higher education in the service of economic development. 20 Table 5: Growth of outputs 1990­99 Table: Growth of Outputs 1990-99 Gross domestic product Agriculture Industry Manufacturing Services 1980-90 1990-99 1980-90 1990-99 1980-90 1990-99 1980-90 1990-99 1980-90 1990-99 Low income 4.7 3.2 3 2.5 5.4 2.8 7.7 2.7 5.6 4.7 Middle income 3.3 3.5 3.6 2 3.7 4.3 4.6 6.3 3.6 3.7 High Income 3.4 2.3 1.4 Low & Middle Income East Asia & Pacific 8 7.5 4.4 3.3 9.5 9.8 10.4 10.2 8.8 6.5 Europe & Central Asia -2.3 -2.9 -3.2 0.8 Latin America & Caribbean 1.7 3.4 2.3 2.3 1.4 3.4 1.3 2.6 1.8 3.5 Middle East & N. Africa 2 3 5.6 2.6 0.4 2.1 2.8 2.2 3.4 South Asia 5.6 5.6 3.2 3.4 6.8 6.5 7.1 7 6.5 6.9 Sub-Saharan Africa 1.7 2.2 2.3 2.7 1.2 1.5 1.7 1.6 2.4 2.4 Uganda 2.9 7.2 2.1 3.7 5 12.7 3.7 14.2 2.8 8.1 Source: World Development Indicators 2001 2.4 Population and social pressures Uganda's current HE system is relatively small. In 2003 total tertiary enrollment was about 86,000 students including enrollments in universities, national teacher colleges, and other tertiary institutions. But there will undoubtedly be social pressures for its expansion from two sources. First, there will be more secondary graduates as the success of Universal Primary Education (UPE) works its way through the education system. About 30,000 secondary school graduates passed the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) in 2000. And this number will increase--not only because of the UPE cohort entering the tertiary system in and around 2009, but because of government efforts to expand secondary education. One of government's goals is to increase the lower secondary coverage from its current 30 percent to about 65 percent. Second, because of population growth, there will be a larger tertiary age group. Compared to the population, gross tertiary enrollment ratio was only 2 percent in 2000. Table 6 presents Uganda's projected populations up to 2030. In 2000 about 1.7 million (8 percent) of the total population were of tertiary education age group (ages 19­22). However, if we include the ages 23­25 as part of the tertiary age group, the total number increases to 2.8 million, 12 percent of the population. Further, this proportion is projected to increase to 17 percent by 2025, when the projected tertiary education population (ages 19­25) will reach about 5.4 million. Table 6: Uganda population projections by age cohorts (in thousands) from 2000 to 2025 Year 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 All ages 22063 23687 25401 27312 29370 31303 Ages 6-12 4630 5381 5717 6070 6543 6963 Ages13-18 3061 3600 4274 4673 4939 5346 Ages 19-22 1688 1934 2276 2735 3006 3181 Ages 23-25 1086 1253 1435 1736 2072 2201 Source: Edstats, World Bank. 21 2.5 Impact of HIV/AIDS The HIV/AIDS epidemic continues to affect Uganda. Despite the fact that HIV/AIDS prevalence rate has dropped from more than 20 percent in the early 1990s to 8 percent in 1999, many of those who were infected are now dying, resulting in high attrition in the labor force and a large number of orphans. The low average life expectancy of 42 can be partially attributed to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In education, it is estimated that one out of every nine primary schools in SSA can expect to have, on average, one AIDS-related death each year. In addition, according to a recent study (Bennell et al., 2002), 20 percent of the population below age 15 are orphans, one-third of which are AIDS-orphans. The implication of the epidemic is very serious for the education sector in terms of its teaching force, the education and care of the orphans, and the school-based HIV/AIDS prevention programs. Tertiary institutions face serious challenges in responding to the growing social demand for higher education while still making up for the losses from HIV/AIDS. The tertiary sector must provide the human capital needed to keep government and businesses functioning, the economy moving forward, and to produce teachers and heath care workers. A strong, flexible tertiary education sector can help build the capacity needed to temper the negative effects of HIV/AIDS and other public health threats. 22 3. OVERVIEW OF TERTIARY EDUCATION 3.1 Overall education system 3.1.1 Structure The Ugandan education system follows a 7­4­2­3 pattern: seven years of primary education, followed by four years of lower secondary or "Ordinary" level, two years of upper secondary or "Advanced" level, and three to five years of tertiary education. In parallel, there is a technical and vocational track, including three-year technical and farm programs that follow immediately after primary education, and three- or four-year post-secondary technical programs. Figure 1 illustrates this structure. Selection and certification occur at the end of the primary education level, the Ordinary level of secondary, and at the end of the Advanced level of secondary by means of national examinations. These respectively include the Primary School Leaving Exam, the Uganda Certificate of Education, and the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education. Entrance to tertiary education is based on the results of the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education. In addition, diploma and mature entrance examinations are administered by institutions. Alternative technical certificates also exist for students choosing the technical track, including the Uganda Junior Technical Certificate, which is taken at the end of three-year post-primary technical and farm programs, and the Uganda Advanced Technical Certificate, which is taken at the end of post-secondary technical programs. Figure 1: Uganda educational structure Universities Technical/Commerce/ Agricultural Medical/Health Hotel/Tourism Other Tertiary National Teacher Colleges Colleges Institutes Institutes institutes Upper Secondary "A" Level Prim. Teacher College Nurses training institutes Technical Institutes Lower Secondary "O" Level Technical&Farm Schools Community Polytechnic Primary Education (official ages 6-12) 23 The official age of entry is six for primary education. However, as in many countries, most children enter at a later age, usually around nine years old. There is no legally imposed entry age for secondary education. The official, or "target," age of entry for secondary schools is age thirteen. However, since most children enter primary school late, the de facto post-primary starting age is on average higher than thirteen, starting at age fifteen. Consequently, students normally enter tertiary education at a later age than eighteen. 3.1.2 Enrollment The Uganda education system is large by African standards. According to the official Education Statistical Tables, the system comprises more than 7.6 million primary students, about 0.5 million secondary and technical vocational students, and about 86,000 tertiary students. The teaching force is also fairly large, with about 200,000 teachers, about 8 percent of total population, teaching at all levels of the formal education system. There are about 14,000 formal educational institutions at all levels. Table 7: Schools, enrollments, and teachers by type Primary Secondary Technical Tertiary * &Farm # of Schools 11,578 1,892 29 90 Enrollment 7.6 million 518,931 7,019 86,000 # of Teachers 145,604 30,384 2600-3000 Source: Education Statistical Abstract 2000, MOES. Information on tertiary is based on most recent data from the National Council for Higher Education in 2003 (see Annex 1). At both the primary and secondary levels, schools can be classified by ownership into government, community, or private schools. Less than 5 percent of primary enrollment is in private schools. The government pays teachers and provides capitation grants to government-aided schools only. Neither community nor other private schools receive any subsidy from the government. However, the distinction between community school and private school is not always clear. Community schools are mostly located in rural areas, and they usually hope to be converted into government schools. Except for a few private schools established by religious bodies that offer high quality education, most private and community schools are not well resourced and provide relatively low quality education. Government-aided schools, however, tend to have better resources and provide better quality education than the average private or community school. 24 Table 8: Enrollment (and number of schools) by ownership Primary Secondary Government 216,292 (490) (8,074) Community 178,510 (2,169) (811) Private 309,200 120,885 (1,228) (579) Source: Education Statistical Abstract 2000. At the tertiary level, there are both public and private universities, National Teacher Colleges, colleges of commerce and technology, and other tertiary institutions. Details of the tertiary system will be discussed in later sections of this report. 3.1.3 Basic indicators Like the rest of the Ugandan economy, the education system suffered under the Idi Amin regime. Primary and secondary coverage remained stagnant in the 1970s, and the quality of education deteriorated substantially. However, significant improvements have been made since the establishment of the new government. The most notable achievement has been the Universal Primary Education policy announced in 1996 and implemented in 1997, which in effect abolished primary school fees initially for up to four children per family and currently for all children. By 1999/2000, total primary enrollment was 6 million, more than double what it had been before 1996. Gross primary enrollment reached 124 percent, and net primary enrollment reached 93 percent (1999/2000 Household Survey). The quality of education aside, this level of primary coverage (near universal) is almost comparable to the more developed regions of North America, Asia and Europe. Education stock indicators have also shown significant improvement. As of 1999, UNESCO reports that 38 percent of Ugandans age fifteen and above are illiterate. This is consistent with household survey estimates, which also indicate that slightly more than a third of the population age fifteen and above cannot read and write. Compared to the UNESCO estimate of 42 percent adult illiteracy for Sub-Saharan Africa in 1997 (World Education Report 2000), Uganda seems to be performing relatively well. However, owing to low income and life expectancy, UNDP's Human Development Index (HDI), combining indicators of life expectancy, educational attainment and income, still ranked Uganda 158th out of 174 countries. The HDI of 0.40 is low compared to the Sub-Saharan average of 0.46 in 1998. The Barro-Lee data set (Table 9) estimates that during the period 1960­2000, the proportion of the population over fifteen years old who had received some years of primary education increased from 27 percent to 43 percent, secondary education from only 1.1 percent to 10 percent, and tertiary education from 0 percent to 0.9 percent. The completion rates are generally much lower. These data confirmed the dramatic improvement in educational coverage in Uganda. 25 Table 9: Primary and secondary coverage in Uganda Population Highest level attained Average Country Year over No First level Second Level Post-Secondary Years age 25 Schooling Total Complete Total Complete Total Complete of (1000s) (Percentage of the population aged 25 and over) School Uganda 1960 2327 72.2 26.7 6.8 1.1 0.2 0.0 0.0 1.10 1965 2774 72.9 25.5 5.6 1.6 0.2 0.0 0.0 1.07 1970 * 3344 71.8 26.5 3.0 1.8 0.1 0.1 0.1 1.05 1975 3759 68.5 29.2 4.9 2.1 0.6 0.2 0.1 1.24 1980 4364 62.3 31.4 6.0 6.0 1.5 0.3 0.2 1.69 1985 4926 63.1 31.2 6.2 5.5 1.3 0.3 0.3 1.66 1990 * 5803 46.1 41.4 8.4 10.2 1.3 0.5 0.4 2.58 1995 6807 48.3 41.2 8.3 9.8 1.3 0.7 0.5 2.70 2000 7738 46.4 42.6 8.6 10.1 1.3 0.9 0.7 2.95 Source: Edstats, World Bank, from Barro-Lee. However, the Barro-Lee estimates of the tertiary attainment tend to be on the conservative side. Using the 1999/2000 Uganda Integrated Household Survey, Liang (2000) estimated that out of the 6 million adults between the ages of 21 and 65 who have left the educational system, about 2.8 percent had attained some sort of tertiary education. These had either "completed post- secondary specialized training or diploma" or had completed "degree and above." And 0.7 percent of those leaving the system had attained a university degree or higher. Figure 2 presents the current education system. The proportion of children enrolled (total enrollment, primary enrollment, and secondary enrollment) is plotted against age. We can see that most children (more than 90 percent) are enrolled in primary school between the ages of nine to twelve years old. Secondary coverage is substantially lower. The peak secondary enrollment occurs at age seventeen, when 22 percent of children are enrolled in secondary schools. Figure 2: Enrollment by age (from HH survey, all ages) A g e - S p e c i f i c E n r o l l m e n t R a t io 1 0 0 T o t a l 9 0 P r im a r y 8 0 % S e c o n d a r y 7 0 Enrolled 6 0 5 0 4 0 3 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 0 1 1 1 2 1 3 1 4 1 5 1 6 1 7 1 8 1 9 2 0 2 1 2 2 2 3 2 4 2 5 A g e Source: 1999/2000 Integrated Household Survey Data. 26 3.1.4 Government expenditure on education Government education expenditure as a whole plummeted from 4.1 percent of GNP in the 1970s to only 1.2 percent in 1980s. The 1980s and 1990s have seen a slow but steady recovery. By 1995 total government expenditure had reached 2.6 percent of GDP. By 1999/2000, the education budget as a share of GNP was about 4 percent (323 Ush billion, including development budget). This level of investment is comparable to the WEI and OECD averages (Table 10), demonstrating a higher government commitment to education . 3 Table 10: Total education expenditure as a percent of GNP and as a percent of total expenditure As a %tage of As a %tage total of GDP expenditure WEI Mean (1999) 4.3 15.6 OECD Mean (1999) 4.9 12.7 Uganda (1999/2000) 4 32 Source: Financing Education, UNESCO 2002. A better indicator of Uganda's commitment to education is the share of government expenditure devoted to education. Education's share of total government expenditure decreased from 17.7 percent to 11.3 percent during the 1980s; however, by 1995, education expenditure rose steadily to occupy about 21.4 percent of total government expenditure. Subsequently, it kept rising and stood at more than 26 percent between 1997 and 2000. Furthermore, in 2000/2001, the education budget reached 32 percent of the total government recurrent budget, much higher than the averages for WEI and OECD countries. Within the education sector in 2000/01, about 16 percent of the recurrent budget was allocated to secondary education (including the 10 National Teacher Colleges), and 4 percent to technical and vocational education and training (including tertiary technical institutions), compared to the 65 percent allocated to primary, and 12 percent allocated to tertiary education. 3WEI countries include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, the Philippines, the Russian Federation, Thailand, Egypt, Jamaica, Paraguay, Peru, Tunisia, Uruguay, and Zimbabwe. 27 Table 11: Recurrent budget allocation in billions of Uganda shilling, 2001/2­2005/6 2001/2 2002/3 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 Estim. Planned Planned Planned Planned Total EducationSectorRecurrent (inUshbillion) 350.53 403.07 425.04 441.06 461.65 PrimaryEducation 65% 63% 65% 66% 66% SecondaryEducation(includingNTCs) 16% 18% 18% 18% 17% BTVET 4% 4% 4% 3% 3% Tertiary(without tertiaryBTVET/NTC) 12% 12% 11% 11% 11% Others 3% 3% 2% 2% 2% Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Note: FromSummaryEducationMediumTermBudget FrameworkJune2003 Per student government subsidy varies substantially by education level. The government subsidy per primary student averaged about US$22, as compared to US$148 per secondary student (see Uganda Post-primary Education Sector Report, 2002) and about US$500 per university student in public universities. This results in a ratio of 1:7:23. 3.2. Tertiary structure and overall enrollment Tertiary education in Uganda follows a seven-year primary education and a six-year secondary education (four years of O level and two years of A level). Tertiary programs can be further grouped into universities, national teachers' colleges, colleges of commerce and technology, and other tertiary institutions. Degree programs are offered only in universities where students complete a 3­5 year program with minimum standards. Colleges and other tertiary institutions offer diplomas, and their programs usually last 2­3 years. Since the 1970s Uganda's higher education has grown very rapidly--especially university education. In 1950 there was only one tertiary institution serving 252 students. By 2000 tertiary enrollment had increased to some 45,000 in 29 institutions. In 2003 Uganda's tertiary education sector consisted of more than 90 institutions enrolling a total of about 86,000 students. Detailed list of tertiary institutions and their enrollment by subject and by gender is provided in Annex 1. The tertiary institutions include 16 licensed public and private universities, 10 National Teacher Colleges, 13 colleges of commerce, 7 Uganda technical colleges, 1 forestry college, 2 co-operative colleges, 3 hotel and tourism institutes, 12 management institutes, 10 health and medical schools, 3 agricultural and animal husbandry colleges, 1 fishery training institute, 1 meteorological school, and 4 theological colleges. Table 12 lists the summary enrollments by category and by gender in 2003. 28 Table 12: Tertiary institutions enrollment by gender, October 2003 by A. B. K Kasozi Institution Arts Sci&Tech Male Female Total Universities (27) 38215 7314 30783 19819 50603 National Teacher Colleges (10) 16988 1344 13889 7275 21164 Uganda Technical Colleges (7) 295 1203 1380 118 1498 Uganda Colleges of Commerce (13) 3798 310 2223 1885 4108 Forestry College (1) 0 167 132 35 167 Co-operative Colleges (2) 0 233 168 65 233 Hotel and Tourism (3) 319 76 179 216 395 Management Institutes (12) 4475 247 2727 2396 5123 Health and medical (10) 0 1697 1214 483 1697 Agricultural/animal husbandry (3) 1 575 489 87 576 Fisheries Training Institute (1) 0 91 71 20 91 National Meterological Institute (1) 0 33 29 4 33 Theological Colleges (4) 148 0 127 21 148 Grand Total 64239 13290 53411 32424 85836 Most of this growth took place after the early 1990s. In Makerere alone, enrollment increased more than four-fold, growing from about 7,000 in 1993 to about 30,000 in 2002. The rapid increase in tertiary enrollment is further evidence of the demand for tertiary education. Expansion of higher education in support of rapid economic development continues. Gulu University opened its gates to the first intake of 300 students in October 2002 and is now offering degree courses in Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Business Administration, and Bachelor of Development Studies. In financial year 2003/04, Ush1 billion has been provided for further infrastructure development at this university. Kyambogo University was established following the merger of the Institute of Teacher Education, Uganda Polytechnic, and the Uganda National Institute for Special Education, while Makerere University has continued to expand. (2003 Budget Speech) Figure 3: Tertiary enrollment trend (1950­2000) 45000 40000 35000 tenmlro 30000 25000 20000 En15000 10000 5000 0 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 Year Source: Kasozi et al. 2002. 29 3.2.1 Program diversification Table 13 also indicates that 60 percent of total tertiary enrollment is in universities. Another 25 percent is in national teachers' colleges, 10 percent in the colleges of commerce and management institutes, 2 percent in technical colleges, and the remaining 3 percent in other tertiary institutions. Traditional universities and teachers' colleges therefore have a combined enrollment of 85 percent of the total enrollment. The overwhelming enrollment in these institutions indicates that the system is not diversified and may be serving a limited clientele and objectives. Current thinking on tertiary education systems seems to advocate a diversified system. The World Bank Higher Education Task Force concluded that, "Knowledge and experience accumulated to date seem to indicate that a diverse but coordinated system, with a variety of institutions pursuing different goals and student audiences, is best able to serve individual and national goals." ("Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise"). However, the evidence is still far from conclusive, and a diversified/differentiated system will require critical elements, such as flexibility, coherence, and articulation of programs. Regrettably, these elements do not exist in the current Ugandan tertiary education system. Meanwhile, enrollment in the Uganda technical colleges (average enrollment: 200 students), agricultural and animal husbandry colleges (average enrollment: 130), forestry college (average enrollment: 214), and cooperative colleges (average enrollment: 130) seem to be low, indicating that these institutions are operating below capacity, and/or that the programs are low quality or irrelevant. This subsector of non-university, non-teacher college institutions presents a serious challenge to successful reform of higher education for Uganda. The Ministry of Education and Sports are planning to upgrade all the technical colleges to polytechnics. Detailed governance structure and financing will have to be worked out. 3.2.2 Public versus private enrollment In Uganda, private enrollment includes both students enrolled in private institutions and fee-paying students (as compared to government-sponsored students) in public institutions. Unlike students enrolled in private institutions, fee-paying students in public universities still benefit from other public investments, such as infrastructure and lecturers. It is estimated that over two-thirds of total enrollment in universities are pure private enrollment and fee-paying students. Pure public enrollment, referring to those sponsored by the government and attending public universities, is between 100,000­160,000, about one third of total university enrollment. Therefore, about two-thirds of university enrollment are private students. In other non-university tertiary institutions (including national teacher colleges, colleges of technology and commerce, agriculture/forestry, cooperatives, health, and other vocational institutions), it is estimated that less than 25 percent students are fee-paying. 30 3.2.3 Day programs, evening programs, and distance learning There are three modes of higher education learning in Uganda: full time traditional day programs, evening programs, and distance learning. The most dominant and prestigious are the full-time day programs. In public universities, almost all of the government-sponsored students attend the full-time day programs, whereas the private fee-paying students are more likely to attend evening programs as the tuition of evening program is slightly lower and the admission criteria for evening programs is also lower. In private institutions, most of the programs offered tend to be traditional full-time day programs. Professional schools are more likely to offer evening classes. At the Makerere University Business School, about 91 percent of the enrollment is for evening classes, and both the Institute of Teacher Education Kyambogo and the Uganda Polytechnic Kyambogo have more than 40 percent of the enrollment in evening programs. It is also common to find evening programs in vocational training institutions, such as those in Nakawa and Lugogo, where between 38 percent and 52 percent of the students are enrolled in the evening classes. These findings suggest that the traditional mode of full- time attendance still dominates the tertiary education system in Uganda, especially in academically oriented institutions. A third mode is the distance learning. This is relatively a new domain for Uganda. However, currently there are about 2000 students in Makerere University, 1000 in Kyambogo, 1000 in Uganda Matyrs University Nkozi, and 500 in Uganda Christian University Nkono who are engaged in distance learning. This represents approximately 10 percent of total enrollment in universities. Further, the Uganda government is seeking funds to establish an Open University. In short, the Uganda tertiary system is growing very fast, both in the number of institutions and the size of the total enrollment. Its structure is also evolving to become more complex as the system increasingly allows for all types of tertiary institutions, including public, private, university, non- university, and others. However, traditional full-time university programs still dominate the system. 31 4. UGANDA TERTIARY SYSTEM PERFORMANCE 4.1 Coverage Tertiary coverage is low in Uganda, whether measured by enrollment ratio or absolute number of tertiary students per 100,000 population. Recent population estimates indicate that there are approximately 2.7 million youths between the ages of nineteen and twenty-five in Uganda. Consequently, the gross tertiary enrollment ratio in Uganda for 2002 is between 2-3 percent. The UNESCO and World Bank education statistics indicate a gross enrollment ratio of 3% for Uganda in 2000. Figure 4 shows the coverage--age-specific enrollment ratios--of the tertiary education system. The proportion of students enrolled in all tertiary programs and university only enrollment is plotted against age. We selected a sub-sample of the population ages 13­40 because there is virtually no one under thirteen enrolled in a tertiary program, and very few over forty. In addition, we smoothed the lines by taking a moving three-year average. We can see that less than 3.1 percent of people between the ages of thirteen and forty are enrolled in tertiary education. University coverage is substantially lower at all ages. The peak enrollment occurs at age twenty-three, when 3.1 percent are enrolled in tertiary programs and 0.6 percent are enrolled in university and above. Figure 4: Age-specific tertiary enrollment for university and all tertiary programs 3.5 d 3 University (Av.) lleornE All Tertiary (Av.) 2.5 tlynerruCtnecreP 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 Age in Years Source: 1999/2000 Integraged Household Survey Data. 32 Despite such rapid growth, the country is still far behind the rest of the world, and tertiary education coverage is low even compared to Sub-Saharan Africa, which had an average tertiary gross enrollment rate of 3.6 percent in 2000 (Table 13). Though low coverage should not be the sole justification for system expansion, it does indicate where Uganda is compared to other countries and regions in the world. Table 13: Tertiary gross enrollment ratio (2000) GER Tertiary East Asia & Pacific 8.8 Europe & Central Asia 43.7 Latin America & Caribbean 20.6 Middle East & North Africa 22 South Asia 9.8 Sub-Saharan Africa 3.6 Uganda 3 Source: EdStats, World Bank 4.2 Tertiary coverage of female and the poor If overall tertiary enrollment ratio is low in Uganda, access to tertiary education for women and other disadvantaged populations is even lower. In this section, we compare tertiary enrollment ratio by gender and by household socioeconomic status. 4.2.1 By gender Female students are underrepresented in college campuses. This is confirmed by Management Information System (MIS) data that indicates that only 37 percent of tertiary enrollment is female (Table 12 above). Though this proportion is comparable to most developing countries in Asia and Africa, it is lower than Botswana (47 percent) and South Africa (48 percent) and other industrial countries, which generally have achieved gender parity. Ugandan female students are least represented in technical colleges (4 percent) and agricultural and animal husbandry colleges (16 percent). Using the 1999/2000 Household Survey Data, the inequality in coverage can also be shown by plotting the age-specific enrollment ratio by gender. Figure 5 shows that, between the ages of seventeen and twenty-seven, female age-specific tertiary enrollment ratios are consistently lower than those of males. The disparity peaks at age twenty-three, when the male enrollment rate reaches as high as 4.5 percent, whereas the female enrollment rate is less than 2 percent. There is evidence that, in addition to general access disparities, females may have less access to the 33 more competitive programs. For example, at Makerere University, only 30 percent of students in medicine are female, in commerce only 27 percent, and in agriculture, veterinary medicine, and the natural sciences only 26 percent (Court, 2000). Figure 5: Age-specific tertiary enrollment rates by gender 5 s 4.5 margorP Male (Av.) 4 Female (Av.) yr 3.5 tiareT 3 2.5 in d lleornEtnecreP 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 Age in Years Source: 1999/2000 Integraged Household Survey Data. More women throughout the world are now entering tertiary education. UNESCO reports that in 2000 the proportion of female enrollment in tertiary education stood at 48 percent, compared to only 32 percent in 1950 (UNESCO Institute of Statistics, Facts and Figures 2000). And there is evidence that the proportion of female enrollment in Ugandan tertiary programs has been increasing. For example, before 1989 in Makerere University, only 12 percent of the admissions at the undergraduate level were female. This proportion increased to about 31 percent in 1993 and 39 percent in 2000. The increase has been linked to the university's implementation of affirmative action in 1989, which stipulated the use of a weighted point system to give female applicants extra points. Further evidence indicates that female enrollment seems to have plateaued at this level. So, mechanisms other than the weighted point system may have to be introduced to boost female tertiary enrollment. In addition, other public tertiary institutions have yet to implement a policy of giving female applicants extra points. The teachers section below, will discuss how gender disparity is also evident in the lower proportion of female lecturers employed in the tertiary sector. 34 4.2.2 By household socioeconomic status Household surveys generally do not report incomes because most people are reluctant to answer such questions; therefore the self-reported data collected are not reliable. Instead, information is collected on household expenditures. Total household expenditure is commonly used as a proxy for household income, or wealth status, together with other indicators, such as the kind of houses lived in and the materials used to construct the house. To understand more about the background of tertiary and university enrollees, we divided the sample into three groups: those currently enrolled in a university and above program, those enrolled in a tertiary program, and those not enrolled in any program but who are within the 18­25 year age range. We then compare the three groups against generally accepted household socioeconomic indicators, including total household expenditure, whether or not the family has a mud wall or is living in a house, and the father and mother's years of education. Table 14 indicates that those not enrolled in a tertiary program come from households with substantially lower socioeconomic status: their total household expenditure averages to only Ush0.4 million, less than a third of those enrolled in tertiary programs (Ush1.5m), and one-eighth of those enrolled in universities. More than half of the not-enrolled group live in houses with mud walls, as compared to 21 percent for the tertiary enrollee and only 11 percent for the university enrollees. Only 58 percent of the not enrolled are living in houses, compared to 66 percent for tertiary enrollees and 73 percent for university enrollees. More drastically, the not-enrolled have an average father's education of only 4.7 years, but the tertiary enrollees have an average father's education of more than 10 years, and the university enrollees have average father's education of more than 13 years. The same is true with mother's education, which is 2.5, 8.3, and 10.4 years respectively for the three groups. Table 14: Household basic socio-economic indicators Enrolled, universities Enrolled, all tertiary Not enrolled programs (ages 18­25) Total hh expenditure Ush3.1m Ush1.5m Ush0.4m percent having a mud wall 11 percent 21 percent 54 percent percent living in a house 73 percent 66 percent 58 percent percent living in rural 21 percent 41 percent 81 percent Father education in years 13.2 10.2 4.7 Mother education in years 10.4 8.3 2.5 Source: 1999/2000 Integraged Household Survey Data. Using the 1992 Integrated Household Survey, Mayanja (1998) studied the social and economic background of Makerere University students and found that the high-income group, which constituted 0.9 percent of the total population, took 42 percent of the places at Makerere. 35 Taken together, with only 2 percent of the age cohort enrolled in tertiary institutions, coverage is low. Coverage is especially low for female students and students coming from poor and other disadvantaged family backgrounds. 4.3 Transition and admission into tertiary programs All tertiary institutions admit A-level graduates, except in a few cases where universities admit those with second-class diplomas. The most important criteria for admitting students were the results of the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education. The UACE is a national curriculum-based examination designed for certification and selection purposes. The highest grade of UCAE is "1." Only grades "1" and "2" are considered "distinction." Grades higher than "8" are considered failures. As mentioned above, Makerere University has instituted a weighted point system that gives extra points to female applicants as a way to improve gender equity. In addition, institutions also administer their own tests to admit mature applicants. As mentioned, the government currently sponsors about 4,000 new entrants per year nationwide. Once a student is sponsored, he or she is sponsored for the entire duration of their study. Unlike other "private" students, these government-sponsored students do not have to pay academic fees and receive upkeep and accommodation. Access to government places is even more competitive and is based solely on A-level examination results. The transition rate from the last grade of secondary, S6, to tertiary education is on average 75 percent. 4.4 Internal efficiency: repetition and dropout There is virtually no information on tertiary students' repetition and dropout rates. Of the data collected, repetition rates seem to vary greatly from institution to institution (Table 15). NTC Kaliro reported a repetition rate of only 1 percent in year 2000, whereas the Jinja School of Nursing and Midwifery and the School of Hygiene Mbale reported a repetition rate of over 16 percent for the same year. The Ministry of Education and Sports confirmed that repetition is negligible in the universities and less relevant to the tertiary institutions as it is to lower levels of education. Those who fail are given supplementary examinations, and those on the semester system sit the failed paper with the group that follows. Some tertiary institutions like Makerere University have flexible credit systems within the institution following the semester system. Credits achieved, however, are not transferable to other institutions. Table 15: Percent of repeaters in year 2000 (from institutional data collected for this Report) % repeaters 2000 Male Female Total Jinga Sch of Nursing and Midwifery 0.10 0.18 0.17 NTC Kaliro 0.00 0.01 0.01 Sch of Hygiene Mbale 0.16 0.18 0.16 Uganda Coorperative College 0.09 0.06 0.08 36 4.5 Labor market outcomes 4.5.1. External efficiency: employment External efficiency refers to the benefit of the education system to the outside labor market and the use of labor market outcomes, such as employment rate and wage levels, to assess the performance of the education system. Two sources of data are used for arguments in this section: one is the survey conducted specifically for this study (Liang and Enos, 2001); the other is a tracer study of Makerere University graduates done in 1997 (Mayanja, M. and Nakayiwa, F., 1997). It was discovered that none of the institutions visited actually kept any records of graduates' whereabouts. Though the survey asked questions regarding the percentage of graduates who found employment or pursued further studies over the last five years, the data collected were largely impressions of those who filled out the questionnaire and therefore may not be reliable. In addition, only seven institutions completed the form. Table 16: Graduate employment rate (Institution Survey) Of those employed, % working in % employed specialisation Bugema University 80% n/a Crested Crane 80% 80% NTC Kakoba 70% 75% NTC Unyama 20% 20% Sch. Of Hygiene Mbale 100% 100% UCC Soroti 20% 50% UNISE 71% 70% The School of Hygiene Mbale has maintained a five-year 100 percent employment record because almost all of its graduates go to work for government hospitals and health facilities. The Crested Crane Hotel and Tourism Training Institute also claims a high graduate employment rate of 80 percent, with most of these graduates working in the tourism industry for which they were trained. Another well- performing institution is the private Bugema University, which has been producing graduates since 1997 and has consistently maintained a more than 80 percent employment rate. Bugema University specializes in business administration, education, and theology. The performance of the National Teacher Colleges seems to be varied. The NTC Kakoba reported having a 75 percent graduate employment rate in 1999. The UTC Unyama reported having only 20 percent of its graduates employed, and of those finally employed, only 20 percent are actually teaching. Looking at the basic characteristics of the two UTCs, one should note that UTC Kakoba is a large NTC with an enrollment of more than 800 students, is located in an urban area, and was religiously founded; whereas UTC Unyama is a much smaller NTC with an enrollment of less than 300, located 37 in a rural area, and established by the community. The reasons for the difference in graduate employment may be the availability of local secondary teaching jobs and, perhaps, better qualified students at UTC Kakoba. The findings of the 1997 tracer study were not positive. This is partly because of its design--it did not compare graduates with non-graduates. The study found that the proportion of Makerere University graduates who secured a job within six months of graduation actually declined between 1994 and 1997. Of those who became employed, 30 percent were absorbed by the schools and universities, 10 percent in banking and insurance, followed by general public administration and non-profit organizations. It also found that there is virtually no difference in the salary and/or benefit package among graduates of various disciplines. If valid, these findings can be tied to the structure of the Uganda economy which was still dominated by public sector employment where wages were not differentiated. There is no recent tracer study of tertiary graduates, and institutions do not usually keep records of the whereabouts of their graduates. 4.5.2. Wage premiums and returns to tertiary education The 1999/200 Uganda Integrated Household Survey data show that only about 16.7 percent of the Ugandan labor force between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five who were not in school were working in the formal wage sector. This sub-sample of wage-earning adults has obtained various years and levels of education. By relating their education to their wage, we can obtain the wage premium associated with an additional year or level of education. Looking only at the yearly pecuniary earnings, we estimated a standard Mincer (1976) equation of the form below: Ln(wage) = + B1*(years of education)+B2*(experience)+B3*(experience squared) Table 17 lists the coefficients and standard errors associated with these predictors. On average, for every additional year of education, the wage increases by more than 17 percent (B1). It has been argued that educational returns may differ by level of education. In a separate model (not reported) that looked at yearly wage premiums to various levels of education, we found wage premiums are 16 percent for primary, 24 percent for lower-secondary level, 15 percent for upper-secondary, and 8 percent for tertiary education. This implies that, for every additional year of tertiary education, earnings increase by 8 percent. Apart from the wage premiums associated with education, wages in the Central and Western regions are significantly higher than in the Northern and Eastern regions. For a given level of education and experience, people in the Central region, including Kampala, have higher wages than those residing elsewhere. There is also a wage penalty associated with being female. Women earn about 18 percent less than their male counterparts with the same level of education and experience, and working in the same location. 38 Table 17: Wage premiums Variables B (S.E) Experience 0.12***(0.00) Experience squared -0.0002***(0.000) Years of education 0.17***(0.004) Western region (compared to Northern) 0.25***(0.06) Central region (compared to Northern) 0.44***(0.05) Eastern region (compared to Northern) 0.09(0.05) Female -0.18***(0.04) *** P <=0.001 However, wage premiums are not the same as the standard returns to education since they do not encompass the direct and opportunity costs of education. Appleton (2001) used the same household survey data, going one step further by using the wage information to compute the standard rates of return. He took estimates of the pecuniary costs of education and assumed that opportunity costs were the wage for post-primary education, but only a fifth of the wage for primary education. Using these assumptions, Table 18 displays the standard private and social rates of return for education by level. Table 18: Private and social rates of return on education (Appleton, 2001) 1992 HIS 1999/2000 UNHS Private Social Private Social Primary 15.2 percent 13.4 percent 30.2 percent 23.7 percent Secondary 6.8 percent 6.4 percent 11.5 percent 10.5 percent University 15.8 percent 2.7 percent 24.2 percent 13.4 percent Positive and relatively high returns to university education further justify that investing in university is beneficial for individuals and for society. Appleton (2001) reasoned that the dramatic increase in social return to tertiary education was mainly due to the cut in public financing for tertiary education. 39 5. TERTIARY EDUCATION INPUTS 5.1 Tertiary education curriculum Many believe that Uganda's higher education curriculum is outdated and irrelevant for the needs of the current economy. The 1989 Education Policy Review Report first recorded this view, and advised that "the programs should be revised or updated where necessary to make them relevant and flexible to the country's needs." Not much has been done since then. A recent study (Kasozi, 2002) found that, perhaps with the exception of universities, much of the curriculum in higher education is centrally determined, specialized, and often theoretical. Much of what is taught is an adaptation to the Uganda version of the Oxfridge/London syllabuses of the 1950s. Further, there is a lack of flexible credit system which results in complete compartmentalization of the university subsector vis a vis the other tertiary subsector with stigma attached to the non-university tertiary subsector. The compartmentalization is not conducive to the promotion of lifelong learning either. Thus, developing university curricula that respond to the needs of Uganda and the region--and which is linked to the global economy-- remains a serious challenge. The process of curriculum design, as well as curriculum content, must be revisited. 5.1.1. External factors and implications for curriculum design A number of external factors are driving changes in higher education curricula globally. First, the changing nature of the economy is leading to a greater breadth in the first level of the HE qualifications and to less focus on specific academic disciplines; hence the growth of multi- disciplinary areas, such as business studies and tourism. There is also a growing recognition of the importance of life skills--such as problem solving, oral communication, and team work--to enable graduates to function better in a rapidly changing environment. And there is the more Ugandan-specific need for graduates to be job creators who drive the economy rather than passively look to fill positions created by someone else. In addition, the development of a more market-oriented economy in Uganda, coupled with ever faster changes in economies in general, implies a need for greater flexibility in providing higher education skills. As the government already knows, it is becoming more difficult to predict which subject-based skills will be needed in the future. These external factors have several implications for the process of curriculum design. First, there must be better articulation between the tiers and types of higher education so that a student can start a course of study at one institution and later proceed to another. Currently, the curricula for diplomas and degrees make it easy for a student to do that. The National Council for Higher Education should ensure better articulation to enable students to utilize multiple education institutions more easily. 40 There will have to be greater emphasis on the concept of life-long learning and continuing professional development, where people return to HE for retraining or updating of their skills. This important component is now almost entirely missing from the curriculum portfolio (with the exception of the Adult and Continuing Education Department at Makerere University). The current emphasis is on front-loaded initial education, which as the future economy increases pace will be inadequate. This gap needs to be filled, and the NCHE could encourage, if not require, institutions to make such provisions. Because the concept is not yet widely recognized in Uganda, special funding arrangements may be needed to get it started, for example, through private sector companies Third, for some parts of the higher education system the entire curriculum is centrally determined, for example in the specialist institutions. The administrative mechanisms needed to produce and update the curricula are slow and expensive. Responsiveness and flexibility in the curriculum will require some extent of institutional discretion to keep the curriculum current. This means centrally specifying only a central core for each curriculum area with local discretion for the remainder. The person or persons responsible for the curriculum would decide the proportion of the curriculum to form that central core, and the content of the core. Developing new core curricula may not be as difficult as at first appears--there are now many sources of new content, such as the MIT material, which is now available through the web, or the material being developed for the new e-university in the UK. The fourth implication is that there should be much more cross-discipline and hence cross- departmental working and even collaborations across institutions. One aspect of the rigidity of the current approach to curriculum approval in vocational colleges is that it is very difficult to set up cross-discipline programs within institutions, and even more difficult between institutions. Such programs are likely to become more important in the future as economic change speeds up (e.g., provision for joint degrees or for qualifications in non-discipline based areas such as tourism). Some countries, pioneered by the US, are moving towards a modular-based approach to the curriculum, sometimes accompanied by a credit transfer system. This might be an ultimate goal for Uganda in the search for greater flexibility. 5.1.2. Content of curriculum: science and technology education The ability of a society to produce, select, adapt, commercialize, and use "knowledge" is critical for sustained economic growth and improving living standards. And it is also true that science and technology are critical elements of the so-called knowledge. During a 1999 World Conference on Science, the Declaration on Science and the Use of Scientific Knowledge stated: "Science education, in the broad sense... is a fundamental prerequisite for democracy and for ensuring sustained development." Unfortunately, the current Uganda higher education curriculum gives little attention to science and technology education. Data from several sources confirm that Uganda's tertiary education sector has a very weak science and technology component. World Development Indicators 2001 estimated 17 percent of tertiary enrollment is in science and technology, while the Task Force on Higher Education and Society, commissioned by the World Bank and other donors, estimated it to be 13 percent. The most recent data compiled by the National Council for Higher Education (Table 13) indicates that 15 41 percent of tertiary enrollment in 2003 was in science and technology, compared to the 29 percent average for Sub-Saharan Africa, and more than 40 percent for East Asia (Tables 21 & 22). Data collected by the task force also indicated that from 1987 to 1995 the proportion of tertiary students in science and technology decreased from 41 percent to 13 percent, primarily due to the expansion of tertiary sectors in areas other than basic science and technology. So, while there has been academic expansion, it did not occur primarily in the subjects that are key to economic development. To be fair, the lack of attention to the science and technology curriculum starts long before students enter the tertiary system. Data from the UACE indicate that, although there are increasing numbers of candidates sitting for all subjects, numbers in mathematics and science subjects remain very low. Table 19 shows that in the year 2000, there were more than 118,000 students sitting for general papers, economics, history, and geography, while only about 20,000 students took the tests for physics, mathematics, chemistry, and biology. Therefore, the number of candidates sitting for math and science subjects is less than 20 percent of the candidates taking humanities and social science coursework. Passing rates in mathematics exams are especially poor. Table 19: UACE candidates and pass rates by subject (2000) SUBJECT NO OF % PASS RATE % DISTINCTION CANDIDATES (GRADES 1-8) (GRADES 1&2) General paper 39,041 87.0 percent 7.0 percent Economics 32,385 71.0 percent 1.4 percent History 25,619 86.0 percent 2.8 percent Geography 21,469 84.0 percent 0.2 percent Christian RE 20,772 94.0 percent 2.0 percent Art 9,474 99.0 percent 0.2 percent Physics 6,349 82.0 percent 0.6 percent Mathematics 5,140 66.0 percent 6.5 percent Chemistry 4,949 76.0 percent 1.0 percent Biology 4,338 84.0 percent 1.0 percent Source: UACE Examinations Results Statistics Summary 1998-2000. Provided by UNEB. 42 Table: Science and Technology Scientists High- and Science technolog engineers Technicia and Scientific y exports in R&D ns in R&D engineerin and Expenditur (% of (per (per g students technical es for manufactu Patent Patent million million (% of total journal R&D (% of red application application people people tertiary articles GNI 1987- exports filed filed (non- 1987-97) 1987-97) students) 1997 97) 1999 (residents) residents) Low income 28 13,572 0.47 6 9,241 1,105,167 Middle income 668 233 39 61,762 0.9 21 96,166 1,092,164 High Income 3166 25 437303 2.36 22 679822 2837232 Low & Middle Income East Asia & Pacific 492 193 43 14,817 1.32 46 65,506 284,777 Europe & Central Asia 2,533 44 34,905 0.77 11 32,728 940,242 Latin America & Caribbean 30 10,093 0.62 16 4003 241,989 Middle East & N. Africa 29 3,123 2 926 2874 South Asia 137 98 24 8896 0.66 4 2143 43155 Sub-Saharan Africa 29 3,499 9 101 684294 Uganda 21 14 17 46 0.57 11 7 67,603 Source: World Development Indicators 2001. Table 20 shows that, between 1987 and 1997, Uganda had an annual average of twenty-one scientists and engineers and fourteen technicians in research and development for every million people. There were only forty-six scientific and technical journal articles published. The last two columns of the table show that technology is almost exclusively an import in Uganda. In fact, there were only seven patent applications by Ugandans, virtually none when compared to the 67,603 applications by non-residents. There can be no doubt that much of the blame for this lackluster performance can be placed on low expenditures on research and development, which, as a percentage of GNP, was barely 0.57 percent, low compared to the 2.36 percent for high-income countries. Table: Tertiary Science Enrollment as % of Total Tertiary 1987-88 1995 Low & Middle Income 28 34 East Asia & Pacific 22 35 Europe & Central Asia 38 39 Latin America & Caribbean 35 27 Middle East & N. Africa 35 30 South Asia 32 17 Sub-Saharan Africa 29 36 World High income 34 29 Uganda 41 13 Source: Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise. 43 Table 21 above offers another interesting insight. High-income countries do not have a higher proportion of their tertiary students in science and technology. In fact, there has been a decrease in high-income countries' science enrollment in tertiary education from 34 percent in 1987 to only 29 percent in 1995. This is mainly because those countries have a much higher tertiary enrollment ratio to begin with, and because they also have a larger stock of science and technology human capital. For every million people, high-income countries on average have 3,166 scientists and engineers in research and development, compared to only 21 in Uganda. Countries in the East Asian region, which is growing fast and trying to catch up with the world economy, are emphasizing science and technology as a conscious strategy for development. Their proportion of tertiary students in science and technology, on average, is more than 40 percent. Science and technology advances are key to economic development. Lewin (2000) claimed that economic development and social change are linked with changes in man's understanding and application of science and technology. Unfortunately, recent evidence found that the North-South scientific gap is large and growing. On average, developed countries have ten times as many research and development scientists and technicians as developing countries. Empirically, it is well documented that Germany, Japan, and Korea consciously programmed their economic development to include higher education, particularly science and engineering education, as centerpieces of three very successful strategies (see Boxes 1, 2, & 3). Although the circumstances surrounding the development of these technology-based economies differ greatly from the current situation in Uganda, it is still believed that conscious support for education in mathematics, science, and technology can go a long way toward economic development. For example, India, another low- income country, currently exports over US$1 billion of software annually, including customized programs for clients in North America. 44 Box 1: Tertiary scientific and technical education in Germany's economic development In the early nineteenth century, Germany remained politically and economically fragmented because of the debilitating social and economic consequences of past wars and the nearly feudal social establishment. Economic union finally arrived with the Zollverein, or Customs Union, in 1833, and with the construction of an enormous web of railroads shortly thereafter. Otto von Bismarck of Prussia, inspiring nationalism through war, politically unified the German States in 1871 by defeating Austria and France. However, despite unification, the German States remained economically behind the rest of Western Europe until the Industrial Revolution. This most important phase of German developmental history came about as a result of Germany's extreme cultural and political emphasis on education, especially in the sciences. The State created a compulsory education system, which created a literate work force, and brought most of the major universities under State control, meanwhile adjusting the curriculum for a strong emphasis on science and technology. These revamped institutions of higher learning produced qualified leadership for industry, and, working together, the academic community and the industrial sector created a new culture of efficiency, discipline, innovation, and, most importantly, productivity. Research and development efforts resulted in spectacular gains in many areas, including chemicals, such as dyestuffs and fertilizers; the mining and use of coal, iron, and steel; electricity and electrical appliances, such as the telephone, light bulbs; and a wide variety of motors and textiles. At first borrowing and importing technology from their more advanced Western European neighbors, the Germans soon surpassed them all by means of their highly educated, highly disciplined work force, which applied the scientific method to industry thorough exploration of the optimal uses of existing technologies, and to the creation of new ones. The Germans made the conscious choice to produce their own manufacturing, rather than remain forever an agricultural nation, and they saw advanced education in the sciences as the central means to that end. The Germans realized at that time what the rest of Europe had yet to comprehend, namely that "comparative advantage is not that same for all, and that some activities are more lucrative and productive than others....They require and yield greater gains in knowledge and know-how, within and without" (Landes, 522). Sources: Dillard, Dudley. Economic Development of the North Atlantic Community. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: 1967. pp. 304-316. Landes, David S. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. W.W. Norton & Company, NY: 1999. pp. 315, 450, 521-22. Box 2: The role of tertiary technical education in the economic development of Japan The story of Japanese development begins in the 1850s with the advent of trade with the industrialized West. A largely agrarian and proto-industrial society specializing predominantly in silk, cotton, and soy products, Japan witnessed the arrival of steam ships and other machinery with appreciative eyes. Having seen the utility of these new appliances, the Japanese decided that in order to modernize they must learn to produce their own manufactured goods. They soon were able not only to copy Western technology, but also to improve upon it. This innovation stimulated industry, which created the need for more and better infrastructure, which in turn stimulated more industry and the demand for engineers and other technical experts. In response, the government increased funding for the imperial universities and research laboratories in 1910, giving special priority to those with programs in engineering. In 1918, the Ministry of Education appointed a commission to evaluate the tertiary education system, and they recommended the construction of more private and public institutions with a variety of departments, especially in technical fields. Many new schools were constructed, including the Osaka Industrial Research Institute and the Osaka Electrochemical Laboratory, which carried out experiments in cooperation with industry. Japan thereafter 45 experienced rapid growth, and by 1920, primary electric motors made up 52.3 percent of the power capacity in manufacturing, more than both England and America at the same time. The Japanese succeeded in redirecting the industrial path of their economy by making the conscious choice to self-educate and to make the most of what they could learn from the countries with which they traded. Sources: The Economic Development of Japan and Korea. Chung H. Lee and Ippei Yamazana, eds. Praeger Publishers: New York, 1990. pp.196-98, 248. The Wealth and Povery of Nations. David S. Landes. W.W. Norton & Company: New York: 1999. pp. 370-390 Box 3: The role of tertiary technical education in the development of the Korean economy Even before Korea embarked on its path of industrial and economic growth in the second half of the twentieth century, the importance of education was a central part of Korean culture. The illiterate few were shunned by the general populace, and great respect was accorded to the highly educated. But despite this cultural reverence for education, the Korean education system focused predominantly on primary education, and the economy thus remained largely agricultural until colonization by Japan in the early 1900's. At this juncture, the Korean leaders, eager to win back Korean independence, blamed the widespread lack of Korean higher education for making the Japanese takeover possible, and they resolved to make important changes in the educational system. Between 1908 and 1945, when Korea gained its independence, over 2,000 private schools were established. After 1945, the government mobilized funding, and enrollment rose from 7.8 thousand in 1945 to 1,260.3 thousand in 1985. The increasing number of graduates from secondary and tertiary schools with strong backgrounds in math and science were instrumental in the transformation of the Korean economy from an exporter of primary products to an exporter of manufactures. The Koreans made the best of their meager natural resources, compensating for this handicap with a highly educated technical labor force. This increased wealth of human capital was the single most important factor in Korea's ability to modernize its economy and reap the benefits of rapid growth. Source: The Economic Development of Japan and Korea. Chung H. Lee and Ippei Yamazawa, eds. Praeger Publishers: New York, 1990. pp. 171,178­83, 188­89. During a study tour to Ireland, the Ministry of Education and Sports in Uganda took notice of the linkage between Ireland's fast economic development in recent years and its investment in tertiary science and education. The Ministry reported the following: The tertiary science enrollment in Ireland is impressive. Between 1987 and 1998, it was 35 percent of total tertiary. In 1995, there was a drop to 31 percent (World Bank, 2000). To highlight the importance of science and technology, the Ministry concerned with the training of the young is called Ministry of Education and Science-- not Sports. Students are only permitted to select subjects in the last year of their second level schooling. This ensures the steady supply of science students to the higher education system. Furthermore, universities like Maynooth accept into science courses students who have little or no background in science. The latter are given crash remedial training in the basics of science. 46 Incorporating science and technology into the tertiary curriculum as a development strategy may still take some time in Uganda. But last year, the government announced the establishment of a Science Innovation Fund. To date, eight institutions, representing the industrial, agricultural and health sectors, have been financed. Prototypes of locally designed power inverters and stabilizers, as well as digital security systems and monitors, have already been developed. (Budget Speech 2003). The Government Vision 2025 also emphasizes science and technology. It is imperative that the Government develop realistic goals and strategies for science and technology education for both secondary and tertiary education, including a sustainable ICT policy. 5.2 Academic staff 5.2.1 Staff recruitment and appointment The management of academic and non-academic staff differs by institution. In the public universities, the Ministry of Public Service (MOPS) helps determine the number of established posts for each public university. These are the number of posts financed by the Ministry of Finance. However, once the number of government-financed posts are established, appointments and promotions are made by the university. There is no regulation that would stop the universities from hiring additional staff on their own budgets. For other non-university public institutions including both technical and vocational institutes and National Teacher Colleges, the Education Service Commission (ESC) makes the appointments of both academic and non-academic staff. The Ministry of Education and Sports makes the subsequent allocation of staff to individual institutions, with only limited involvement by the institution. Currently, staff promotions are treated as new appointments and made as such by the ESC. Clearly these institutions have less autonomy with regard to hiring and firing as compared to universities. There seems little pressure to use staff effectively. Staff often work without clear job descriptions, and while this provides job flexibility, it also allows abuse. Some staff who do not contribute fully to the work of their institution still work extensively outside their institution. While such "external work" is understandable in current circumstances, it leads to misuse and inefficiencies. As a safety valve, institutions sometimes use less well qualified "part-time" staff, who are often not part-time at all, to do the work which needs to be done. The success of an institution depends on selecting the right staff. But the rigidity in staff appointments, especially in non-university tertiary institutions, makes obtaining the best qualified staff difficult. Although the new Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act seems to give autonomy to the institutions, it is not yet implemented fully. In the meantime, the head of an institution could veto proposed staff appointments, or at least attend any interview panel drawn up to allocate staff. For the most senior appointments, it would be better if the governing body or council of the institution were directly involved. Once they become autonomous agencies, as stipulated in the Act, each institution might appoint its 47 own staff, as currently done in the universities. Although most other countries already do this, it may take a little while before institutions in Uganda are able to operate with that level of autonomy. 5.2.2 Staff promotion in universities In the public universities, promotion criteria depend heavily on a candidate's publication output. This seems inappropriate when the major part of the work of almost all academic staff is focused on teaching rather than on research. A more appropriate appraisal and promotion system may be needed. Of course teaching in HE requires staff to keep up with the literature and with developments in their subject, but this is not the same as undertaking research aimed at producing publications. There must be a serious discussion about the extent to which it is appropriate, and affordable, for academic staff in Uganda to undertake publication-oriented research. If, in fact, the government decides to spend public funds on such work, it should specify the amount, define the expected outputs, and then require all other public HE funds to be used for teaching and its associated scholarship. There is also strong pressure on all academic staff to seek a Ph.D. Not only does this often take staff away from their teaching function for long periods (and is thus, in effect, making the effort doubly expensive), it also encourages a more theoretical approach to curriculum development, something for which the employer community in Uganda have criticized the universities, and Makerere University in particular. 5.2.3 Staff professional development Staff professional development is not now part of the normal operations within any HE institution (except at Makerere University), and is treated as an additional expenditure that needs special funding. In part, this reflects the rigidity of the current funding regime since funds are allocated for specific purposes for most of the tertiary institutions (see Section 7: Cost and Financing). The move towards block funding for all institutions would give institutions the flexibility to use funds for staff development. The National Council on Higher Education could require institutions to have a staff appraisal and staff development system and provide a good practice model for it. 5.2.4 Student-lecturer ratio Another important quality input indicator is the student-lecturer ratio, which usually serves as a proxy for the quality of education. Some claim that universities with low student-lecturer ratios tend to have a better quality of teaching and learning. However, it is also true that when the student-lecturer ratio becomes very low, unit cost of running the university becomes high and the institution may not be financially viable without subsidies from public funds. Depending on the type of tertiary institution, the ratio varies significantly. The lowest resourced institutions in terms of lecturers are the ten public national teachers colleges, where the average student-lecturer ratio is 67. Newly established private universities have very generous ratios. For instance, Namasagali University has a student-lecturer ratio of 2, and Kampala University has a ratio 48 of 6. However, these low ratios do not necessary mean higher quality instruction. In fact, they could mean just the opposite. These institutions could be having difficulty recruiting students, since they rely almost exclusively on tuition for income. Their lecturers may not be as qualified when compared to universities with a more stable establishment. Other types of institutions that have low student-lecturer ratios include the Mbarara University (5), the Uganda technical colleges (6), and the Institute of Teacher Education Kyambogo (8). Indeed the low student-lecturer ratio in Mbarara University contributed to a very high public subsidy per student of US$2,452 as compared to the average subsidy per student of US$500 across the four public universities (see Cost and financing section). Again, this lack of demand may be because, in the eyes of students and parents, these programs do not provide high quality instruction and good employment opportunities. The government is planning to upgrade the technical colleges to polytechnics. However, the challenge is to devise sustainable financing for these institutions. On the other hand, the well-established public institutions, such as Makerere University and Uganda Polytechnic Kyambogo, seem to have more reasonable overall student-lecturer ratios: 19 for the former and 18 for the latter. These ratios are comparable to what we find in the industrial world. Within Makerere University, the ratios vary greatly depending on the faculty. The Makerere School of Education has the highest student-lecturer ratio of 56. There also seems to be a strong demand for business-related and arts programs. Programs with a student-lecturer ratio of more than 30 include Law, Social Sciences, Librarianship, Arts, Business School, and School of Education. The overall trend seems to be that medicine, science, and technology programs have a much lower student:lecturer ratio. In the case of medicine, there are only three students per faculty member. Figure 6: Student:lecturer ratio by program in Makerere University Makerere University 60 50 tioaR 40 err 30 t:LectunedutS 20 10 0 Veterinary MedicineAg dicine Arts Social Sciences Law Arts BS MU Me riculture ForestryScience nology ucation ne Tech Co ntinuingESchoolofInstitute of d Fi Statistics Librarianship SchoolofEducation Source: "Makerere University in Transition 1993-2000, Opportunities and Challenges." 49 The case of extremely low student-lecturer ratios in selected tertiary programs and faculties raises concern about the efficiency of the system as a whole and the financial sustainability of these programs, especially if they must rely on student fees as a major source of income. 5.2.5. Staff characteristics and workload A total of 102 lecturers completed an individual lecturer survey form that gathered information on the basic characteristics of lecturers, such as age, gender, qualifications, monthly salary, bonuses, and work load. Overall, about one-third of tertiary lecturers who responded are female. The average tertiary lecturer is about 41 years old, has taught for 9.6 years, and has stayed in the current institution for 8 years, indicating a low staff turnover. About 42 percent of them have obtained a master's degree, 35 percent have only a bachelor's degree, and another 13 percent have a diploma (assuming the diploma is in addition to the bachelor's degree). Ten percent of lecturers have obtained a Ph.D. More than half of them (59 percent) have earned a teaching certificate in addition to their pre-service qualifications. On average, tertiary lecturers reported spending 14 hours lecturing, 14 hours on other administrative tasks, 13 hours to prepare for lessons, and another 7.6 hours on grading students' work, per week. Table 22: Teacher characteristics, work load, and teacher pay (institution survey) Respondents # Mean Age 102 42 % female 102 27% Years in the profession 102 9.6 Years in the current institution 102 8 Teaching qualifications 102 % with a diploma 13% % with a bachelor's degree 35% % with a master's degree 42% % with a Ph.D 10% % with teaching certificate 102 59% Hours spent lecturing per week 102 14 Hours spent in adminstrative tasks per wk 100 14 Hours spent planning for classes per week 101 13 Hours spent grading per week 101 7.6 Monthly salary 83 US$258 50 These basic characteristics of lecturers differ by the kind of tertiary programs. We were able to group the lecturers into the following four categories: (a) technical and vocational programs, which award a certificate or diploma, (b) national teacher colleges, (c) Institute of Teacher Education at Kyambogo, and (d) universities (Makerere and Mbarara). Table 23: Teacher characteristics by program (institutional survey) Tec.Voc. Programs NTCs ITEK Universities Age 40 44 46 42 % female 28% 20% 29% 31% Years in the profession 10 10 11 8 Years in the current institution 9 8 8 6 % with a diploma 30% 0 0 3.50% % with a bachelor's degree 35% 89% 0 6.90% % with a master's degree 35% 11% 86% 62% % with a Ph.D 0% 0 14% 28% % with teaching certificate 50% 80% 86% 52% Hours spent lecturing per week 16 13 7 12 Hours spent in adminstrative tasks per wk 15 12 26 12 Hours spent planning for classes per week 12 14 14 15 Hours spent grading per week 7 7 12 8 Table 23 indicates that lecturers at the teacher education institutions, including the ten national teacher colleges and the Institute of Teacher Education at Kymbogo (ITEK), appear older on average than those in other tertiary programs. National teacher colleges train secondary school teachers, while the ITEK specializes in providing further professional training for teachers. NTCs also seem to have the worst female to male staff ratio; only one in five lecturers is female. Almost 90 percent of NTC faculty have only a bachelor's degree, whereas 86 percent of ITEK lecturers have a master's degree. Technical and vocational program lecturers have a fairly equal distribution: one-third with a bachelor's, one-third with a diploma, and another third with a master's degree. The universities have the most qualified staff, with 90 percent of university lecturers having at least a master's degree, although the 7 percent who only obtained a bachelor's degree may cause worries about academic quality. ITEK lecturers spend the least amount of time (seven hours) per week lecturing, as compared to other lecturers. They are also the ones who seem to spend the most time on "administrative tasks" (twenty- six hours). Lecturers at the technical and vocational programs spend the most hours--sixteen per week--teaching. 5.2.6 Staff remuneration Data on tertiary lecturer pay is limited and based on only a few responses. However, there seems to be a general trend. 51 The average monthly lecturer salary is equivalent to US$258 (Table 26). Given that Uganda had a reported GDP per capita of US$280, the average annual salary of US$3,096 (assuming a twelve-month pay every year) is about 11 times of GDP per capita. The lecturer pay seems high when compared to GDP per capita; however, when compared to international standards, Ugandan lecturer pay is low. Average lecturer pay seems to vary by institution and program within the institutions. In general, university lecturers are more highly paid than lecturers in other tertiary institutions. Lecturers with better qualifications also seem to be better paid. Of the institutions surveyed, lecturers at the Institute of Teacher Education Kyambogo are the most highly paid, with a monthly salary of US$462. Bugema University and Makerere University follow, with monthly salaries of US$356 and US$297, respectively. From the survey, it seems that, on average, lecturers at the Mbarara University are paid the lowest in the profession, with a monthly salary of US$197, which is even lower than the average for technical and vocational programs (US$223). When we discuss public expenditure on tertiary programs, we will realize that Mbarara actually has the highest expenditure per pupil per year of all programs (US$2,452, as compared to the average of US$500 for other public universities). In addition, we learn that Mbarara also has the lowest student to lecturer ratio: there are only five students for every lecturer employed! The Ministry confirmed that students currently enrolled in Mbarara compete to register for courses at the Makerere University, and this raises the question of the future sustainability of Mbarara. Table 24: Teacher pay by type of program and institution (institutional survey) Respondents Monthly Salary Mbarara University of Science and Technology 3 $197 National Teacher Colleges 175 $217 Tec.Voc. Programs 35 $223 Makerere University 23 $297 Bugema University 14 $356 Institute of Teacher Education Kyampogo 5 $462 Lecturer pay also seems to be largely determined by qualifications. Those who have a bachelor's degree are paid at a monthly rate of US$206, compared to US$248 for those with a diploma, US$292 for those with a master's degree, and US$352 for those with a Ph.D. 52 Figure 7: Lecturer pay by qualification (institutional survey) 400 $SUniyaPyhlntoMegarevA 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 Bachelor Diploma Master Ph.D Note: Diploma refers to B.A. with Diploma in Education. Annual bonuses are rare, and we found discrepancy in the data about them. Only 7 percent of the lecturers reported having received an annual bonus, with the amount ranging from US$41 to US$625. These lecturers are found in Makerere, ISAE, ITEK, NTC Ngetta, UPK, Nkumba University, and NTC Kaliro. However, in the institution data, only Bugema University reported consistently that lecturers there receive an annual bonus in addition to their monthly salary. The average amount of this annual bonus is US$828, and lecturers in Bugema University receive more or less this amount of annual bonus with little variation. The study, "Makerere University in Transition 1993­2000: Opportunities and Challenges," reported that the university has recently introduced "top up allowances" for faculties from the income generated by student fees. It is estimated that, with additional top up allowances, lecturer monthly pay could range from US$1,060 to US$1,600. This is very high when compared to their previous salary of around US$300 per month. However, the Ministry of Education and Sports maintains that, according to public service regulations, the idea of a bonus does not apply in government institutions. Perhaps those paying bonuses are using privately generated funds approved by the governing councils. Responses from private institutions are too few for comparison of lecturer pay in public and private institutions. Bugema University was the only private university which responded, and their average lecturer pay seems comparable to ITEK and Makerere Unversity. Private institutions are also required to include retirement benefits in their budgets at the end of specified contracts. However, lecturers hired on a part-time basis who are not on the regular government payroll are paid the lowest. For example, Masaka Technical College pays an average Ush180,000 for eight months to lecturers not on the government payroll, as compared to Ush450,863 for lecturers on the government payroll. Comparatively, a lecturer in the Faculty of Technology at Makerere University earns Ush662,837 per month. 53 5.2.7 Lecturers at the National Teacher Colleges Four NTCs--NTC Kakoba, NTC Ngetta, NTC Nkozi, and NTC Unyama--completed a detailed institution survey. The findings confirmed that NTC lecturers seem to be older with more years of experience. Females are not very well represented and also seem to have the fewest teaching hours per week. In addition, the pay at NTCs is competitive, even compared to universities. Table 25: Teacher characteristics: pay and hours worked in four National Teacher Colleges (institutional survey) Teacher characteristics, pay, and hours worked in 4 National Teacher Colleges NTC Kakoba NTC Ngetta NTC Nkozi NTC Unyama NTC Average average age 46 45 41 46 44.5 % female 25 9 26 3 15.8 average experience 21 n/a 15 n/a 18 average monthly salary $248 $190 $246 $187 $217.8 Average annual salary * $2,978 $2,282 $2,949 $2,246 $2,613.7 hours taught per week 9 n/a n/a n/a 9.3 Weeks worked per year 42 n/a 50 52 48 *Assuming teachers are paid 12 months out of a year. In short, tertiary lecturers in Uganda on average earn a comfortable annual salary compared to the local living standards, ABOUT 11 times the per capita GDP of US$280. However, compared to international standards, this pay scale is low. Kasozi (2002) reported that the brain-drain phenomenon still presents a problem to the Uganda tertiary education sector because the well-trained academics choose to live in Europe or North America where living standards are better and more recognition is given to research and other scholarly work. Tertiary lecturer pay is largely determined by qualification and experience and the kind of institution. Performance-based bonus systems are still rare, although starting to be introduced in Makerere University. The policy focus should therefore not be on raising the general salary level for lecturers; instead, policy should be devising mechanisms to award excellence in teaching and research. Any strategy for recruiting and retaining high quality staff should double the student to staff ratio (to bring it closer to the international norm), halve the total number of academic staff, and double their pay. This would use the best staff more effectively and provide them with better rewards so that they would feel less inclined to seek outside employment. Even if no changes were made along these lines, there would still be an advantage in developing appraisal systems for academic and non-academic staff, since there now appears to be virtually none. This would dramatically improve the accountability for staff time, and hence reduce abuse. It should also draw a more effective contribution from staff and provide better inputs into decisions about promotion and staff development. 54 5.3. Other tertiary inputs In addition to curriculum and teachers, other inputs--such as access to information, communication, and technology, infrastructure, library and books--are critical to achieving quality higher education. 5.3.1 Access to information, communication, and technology (ICT) As the world moves into an information age, Ugandans still do not have wide access to information. The World Development Indicators (World Bank, 2001) reported that only two out of every 1,000 people in Uganda have access to a daily newspaper, as compared to twelve for Sub-Saharan Africa. This circulation is particularly low, considering that Uganda has a much higher adult literacy rate compared to other countries in the region. Also, only 127 out of 1,000 people have access to radios, 28 out of 1,000 people have televisions, and 2.5 out of 1,000 people have a personal computer. There were only 0.07 Internet hosts for every 10,000 people, 25,000 Internet users in the entire country, and one single secure Internet server. These statistics show that Uganda is far below even the average levels of Sub-Saharan Africa, let alone the rest of the world. Table 26: Access to information Table: The Information age Television personal Internet Daily newspaper (per 1000 computers hosts per Internet Internet (per 1000 people Radios (per 1000 people (per 1000 10,000 users secure 1996) people 1999) 1999) people) people thousands server Low income 157 85 4.4 0.48 4,766 224 Middle income 360 279 27.1 13.2 45,241 4,622 Low & Middle Income East Asia & Pacific 302 252 17 3.98 23,593 844 Europe & Central Asia 102 446 370 39.3 24.1 10,184 1,392 Latin America & Caribbean 71 419 272 37.7 29.6 9,687 1,946 Middle East & N. Africa 33 272 175 25.4 0.67 1,153 72 South Asia 113 71 3.2 0.31 3,034 97 Sub-Saharan Africa 12 201 43 8.4 3.1 2,357 495 Uganda 2 127 28 2.5 0.07 25 1 Source: World Development Indicators, 2001. Information and communications technologies (ICTs) are fast revolutionizing tertiary education. A researcher in one institution can access publications from many other universities across the globe. Through electronic learning (e-learning), one lecturer can attend to thousands of students spread across a number of universities using high speed networks and multimedia technologies. The Internet has become an indispensable resource for many students and lecturers as an inexhaustible sharable resource. Virtual universities are now a burgeoning reality. To take advantage of these technologies, universities need to provide computer and communications facilities to both students and staff. In addition, staff and students should be given the appropriate skills to enable them to harness ICT's full potential. With the increasing demand for higher education, 55 ICTs can provide alternative training outside the traditional classrooms through e-learning in individual homes or at community centers. The Internet is by far the best way of providing distance education. In a study designed to assess tertiary institutions, Kasozi et al. (2002) assessed the access to Internet, personal computers, and other ICT facilities. While they find that many appreciate the potential and need for modern ICT for universities, the current statistics are not encouraging. Their survey indicates that only selected elite universities such as UMU, Nkozi, Mbarara University of Science & Technology, and Nkumba University were advanced in ICT infrastructure, including connection to the Internet. The average student to computer ratio for institutions surveyed shows a figure of one computer to fifty students, and in some cases a computer was being shared by over 300 students (Figure 8). Only UMU, MUST, UMI and Bugema Universities meet the recommended minimum and have an ICT infrastructure worth using for outreach activities. Although the student to computer ratio for Nkumba was poor, the university has the infrastructure in place to support possible outreach programs. Generally, there is a deliberate effort to extend Internet services to every district by 2003 and to provide telephone access to every sub-county in Uganda by 2005. If this happens, then there will be great opportunities for extending distance learning through Internet connections at district headquarters or community centers throughout the country. Figure 8: Student to computer ratio (from Kasozi et al., 2002) 450 400 re 350 put 300 moCreP 250 stn 200 150 udetS 100 50 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Institution 56 5.3.2. Tertiary infrastructure Another quality (input) indicator generally used is the quality of infrastructure. Twenty-one institutions completed the infrastructure survey. Unfortunately, the response rate was too low to permit a comparative analysis of various types of tertiary programs. On average, the tertiary campuses occupy about 221 acres of land and have 11 classrooms. Eighty-one percent of them have a library; 59 percent have a cafeteria, 67 percent of them have at least one football field, and 53 percent have at least one basketball field. In addition, 76 percent have running water, and 95 percent have electricity. Only two institutions reported having distance education methods, such as radio. The reasons given for not having distance education are that the school has no radios, teachers are not trained, and that they do not think it worthwhile. Table 27: Tertiary infrastructure (from institutional survey conducted for this report) Average Campus area 221 acres # of classrooms 11 percent having a library 81 percent percent having a cafeteria 59 percent percent having at least 1 football field 67 percent percent having at least 1 basketball field 53 percent percent having water 76 percent percent having electricity 95 percent In addition, many institutions that do have a library also have low stocks of books. Ideally, a student should have access to forty books at any one time--i.e., a student book ratio of 1:40-- provided the books are relevant to the courses. But as Figure 9 shows, only UMU, Bugema and Mukono reach this ideal, and most of the books at Mukono were only relevant to religious studies. Figure 9: Student to book ratios 45 40 35 Ratio30 25 Book 20 15 Student10 5 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Institutions 57 In short, universities in Uganda are operating in overcrowded and deteriorating physical facilities, with limited, obsolete, or irrelevant library materials. Apart from a few elite public schools, most students do not have access to personal computers or the Internet. The problems of quality and lack of resources are compounded by the increasing student enrollment in tertiary institutions. When faced with funding shortages, government usually cuts down expenditures on capital projects but protects recurrent expenditures, especially salaries. The lack of steady funding for capital development for Uganda tertiary education is not new. What is interesting is that, while the government generally spends very little on capital expenditure even for public universities, universities vary greatly in their access to donor funds for capital projects. For example, Makerere University had access to more than Ush5 billion of donor funds for capital development. The Islamic University received a donation from Saudi Arabia, which allowed the university to construct student hostels. So, from a macro point of view, there are funds available for capital development for the tertiary education sector. However, the Ministry of Education and Sports has no control over these funds, and access to donor funds is determined mainly by the historical connections with the donors, or by political reasons and donor agenda. It seems sensible for the ministry to coordinate donor efforts at the system level to make sure that investments are aligned with government priorities, and that systemic goals of expansion and equity can be ensured. Such an approach, again, calls for a comprehensive higher education development strategy. 58 6. TERTIARY EDUCATION GOVERNANCE 6.1 Regulatory framework for tertiary education 6.1.1. Legal framework The legal framework for the tertiary education sector in Uganda is still evolving. In the past, discrete statutes have been established to cater to specific institutions. These include the Makerere University Act passed in 1970, the Mbarara University of Science and Technology Statute in 1989, the Uganda Management Institute Statute in 1992, and the Institute of Teacher Education Kyambogo Statute in 1993, which granted a degree of autonomy to the institutions. While many countries have set up a separate law for tertiary or higher education, there was no overall legal framework for the tertiary education sector in Uganda until 2001, when the government passed the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act. The Act, though still far from being comprehensive and flexible, defines tertiary education and increases institutional autonomy. The Act seeks to develop a system governing institutions of higher education that will equate qualifications of the same or similar courses offered by different institutions of higher education while respecting the autonomy and academic freedom of the institutions. It also means to widen the accessibility of high quality standard institutions for students wishing to pursue higher education courses by (a) regulating and guiding the establishment and management of those institutions; and (b) making equal the same professional or other qualifications, as well as the award of degrees, diplomas, certificates and other awards of the different institutions. The Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act establishes a National Council for Higher Education to assure quality in all tertiary institutions, though it did not specify the actual mode for quality assurance. The council was only recently established. According to the Act, the functions of the council are to: (a) Implement the objectives of the Act (b) Promote and develop the processing and dissemination of information on higher education for the benefit of the people (c) Advise the minister on the establishment and accreditation of public and private institutions of higher education (d) Receive, consider, and process applications for the establishment and accreditation of public and private institutions of higher education (e) Register all institutions of higher education established in the Act (f) Receive and investigate complaints relating to institutions of higher education and take appropriate action (g) Monitor, evaluate and regulate institutions of higher education (h) Evaluate the overall national manpower requirement and recommend solutions to the 59 requirements in cooperation with the relevant government departments, private sector, or the different institutions of higher education (i) Ensure minimum standards for courses of study and the equating of degrees, diplomas and certificates awarded by the different public and private institutions of higher education (j) Set and coordinate national standards for admission of students to the different institutions of higher education (k) Determine the equivalence of all types of academic and professional qualifications of degrees, diplomas and certificates obtained elsewhere with those awarded by Uganda Institutions of higher education for recognition in Uganda (l) Certify that an institution of higher education has adequate and accessible physical structures and staff for the courses to be offered by it (m)Promote national interests in courses of study and professional qualifications among the different types of institutions of higher education (n) Ensure that adequate facilities and opportunities for career guidance and counseling are provided by the institutions of higher education (o) Collect, examine and publish information relating to the different institutions of higher education (p) Advise the government on policy and other matters relating to institutions of higher education (q) Perform any other function incidental to the objectives of the Act or relating to higher education in Uganda or that may be conferred upon it by the minister by any other law However, the legal framework is not yet comprehensive. First of all, the definition of tertiary or higher education as stipulated in the Act, "both public and private universities and other tertiary institutions that provide post-secondary (post A level) education, offering courses of study leading to the award of certificates, diplomas and degrees, and conducting research and publishing", has caused some confusion over the jurisdiction of tertiary institutions. Before the Act, three departments in the MOES had clear jurisdiction over the three types of institutions: Higher Education Department is responsible for universities, BTVET is responsible for technical and vocational institutions, and the teacher education department is responsible for National Teacher Colleges. The Act clearly groups the three subsectors into one single "higher" or "tertiary" education sector. Other serious gaps in the Act include financing strategies, principles for allocating public funds, incentives for private institutions, accountability and operationalized quality assurance mechanisms. Further, the Act did not stipulate clearly the role of the National Council for Higher Education and how its functions should be financed. Amendments will have to be made in the near future to provide legal basis in these important areas. 60 6.1.2 Jurisdiction over tertiary education According to the Act, the Higher Education Department within the Ministry of Education and Sports has jurisdiction over tertiary education. However, the Department of Business, Technical, and Vocational Education and training is still responsible for some of the technical tertiary institutions and the teacher education department is responsible for all the National Teacher Colleges. These three departments are responsible for overall policy issues pertaining to tertiary education, such as criteria for government scholarships. However, there is very little communication or collaboration between the departments and none provides universal quality assurance for Uganda's tertiary institutions. While it can be argued that the teacher education sector is more distinctive, the management responsibility for non-university and non-teacher college tertiary institutions is blurred and seems to fall under both the Higher Education Department and the BTVET. This makes it difficult to coordinate policymaking, especially with regard to non-university tertiary institutions. The newly established NCHE complicates the picture even more. Although the council is supposed to be a statutory body providing quality assurance for all universities and tertiary institutions, it is not clear how it will work, and its role still needs to be clarified vis à vis the Ministry of Education and Sports, the Ministry of Finance, and the tertiary institutions. The main question is whether the council should play merely an advisory role or if it should be given the authority and responsibility for raising and allocating funds. Currently, NCHE is a mere regulatory body with very limited powers and funding. Its budget allocation is set at about US$300,000 a year, and the funds are routed through the Ministry of Education and Sports. Box 4: Examples of tertiary education institutional setup Institutional setup for the jurisdiction of tertiary education varies worldwide. Some countries have a separate ministry in charge of tertiary education (e.g., Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Jordan, Yemen). Others have recently merged several line ministries responsible for tertiary education, science and technology, and R&D (e.g,, Japan, Thailand and Korea). In Thailand, for example, the Administration of Ministry of Education Regulatory Act was announced on July 7, 2003, amalgamating the Ministry of University Affairs with the Ministry of Education. Article 10 of the act stipulates that the central administrative bodies of the Ministry of Education are organized as follows: (1) Office of the Minister; (2) Office of the Permanent Secretary; (3) Office of the Education Council; (4) Office of the Basic Education Commission; (5) Commission on Higher Education; (6) Office of the Vocational Education Commission. Agencies no. 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 each has a legal status as a juristic person, and each agency has an administrative status equivalent to Department. Chief executive officers of each agency will come under direct command of the Minister of Education. 61 6.1.3 Government's role The Government of Uganda knows that it cannot just be a provider of tertiary education, it must also be an enabler to allow the private sector to flourish. But the government is still learning how to be an effective enabler and what policy mechanisms should be adopted. Worldwide, enablers for private education include: recognition of degrees and competences (especially by private providers); tax incentive; and competitive and demand-side funding programs. Some countries have incorporated some of the mechanisms into a private education law. China has allowed the private sector to participate in education by passing the Private Education Promotion Law in 2002. In Korea, the Private Education Act was enacted in the early 1960s and has helped boost private delivery of tertiary education. In contrast, the Ugandan Government has not used any explicit mechanisms to promote private education. It does not provide any tax incentives for private institutions, nor does it channel any public funds into the private institutions. The newly established National Council for Higher Education is expected to provide a common framework to recognize the degrees and competencies conferred by all institutions. However, this work is just beginning, and to date there is no framework in place. Tertiary education consumers cannot compare the various degrees, diplomas, and certificates from the institutions. In addition there is no separate law regarding the operation of private tertiary institutions. The only reference to private tertiary education is in the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act, which states that the governance of private institutions will be determined by the specific charter of the private institution. 6.2 Institutional autonomy (academic freedom) Institutional autonomy or academic freedom is crucial to the vitality of the tertiary sector. This distinguishes tertiary education from the lower levels of the education sector. Are institutions free to determine internal structure, manage enrollment and course contents (curriculum), hire and fire academic staff, set tuition and fees, borrow and spend funds? 6.2.1 Internal governance In Uganda, the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act details the governance structure for institutions. However, the structure of governance, as stipulated in the new act, varies according to the type of institution. For public universities, the governing structure is comprised of the university council (executive body), the university senate (academic authority), and other academic bodies. These bodies are supported by numerous officers, such as the chancellor, vice-chancellor, the university secretary, and the deans and heads of departments. The president, on the recommendation of the university council, appoints the chancellor for each public university, and in turn the appointed chancellor, on the recommendation of the university council, will name his or her vice-chancellor from 62 among three candidates recommended by the senate. For tertiary institutions other than the universities, the governing body is supposed to be comprised of a governing council, which is the executive body, and an academic board, which is in charge of academic affairs. The principal of the institution is the secretary to the governing council and the chairperson for the academic board. The Minister of Education and Sports appoints the chairperson of the governing council from three names forwarded by the council itself. The governance structure of a private university will be determined as specified in its charter. Overall, as Eisemon (1993) predicted, there now seems to be a new relationship between government and the institutions that is more indirect. Although the state has a larger role in the supervision of an increasingly diversified higher education system, it is less involved in university governance, management, and financing. And the new act provides such autonomy to all tertiary institutions. However, the Act is yet to be implemented fully, and the current reality is quite different. While premier universities, such as Makerere University, enjoy a certain degree of administrative autonomy, most institutions, especially non-university institutions, are still micro-managed by the Ministry of Education and Sports. Even in the case of Makerere University, financial autonomy is limited. For example, the number of government teaching posts is still determined by the government. (Section 7 provides a more detailed discussion on the disadvantages of the current budgeting system.) Although there may be governing bodies in these institutions, most board members are not powerful or capable enough to voice their opinions; hence, decisions are still being made by institutional heads. And while there has been no in-depth analysis on how institutions reach consensus on important academic and non-academic issues, the study, "Decentralization and Tertiary Institutions of Learning in Uganda," notes that "the general picture that emerged is that most institutions permit the staff to advise the administration. But ultimate power lies with the heads of institutions who may or may not follow majority views in making final decisions" (Kasozi et al., 2002). Box 5: Examples of internal governance Tertiary education institutions in OECD countries enjoy substantial autonomy in terms of internal governance (institutional structure), academic and resource management, and staffing. Countries like Japan, Turkey and Korea, where academic institutions have less institutional autonomy, are now moving towards giving more autonomy to academic institutions. In Japan, for instance, the government plans to implement an administrative reform that would make national universities independent from country administration. The main idea is to transform the legal entity of a national university from a government agency into a "national university corporation" with a legal personality. However, this initiative is being criticized by academia because despite the word "independence" in its name, it will strengthen the regulation imposed by the Ministry of Education. Critics argue that even closing or retaining a university will be at a minister's discretion. 63 6.2.2 Academic freedom Tertiary institutions generally have the freedom to manage their own enrollment. All secondary graduates have to sit for the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education and, depending on the results of the exam, students are admitted into various institutions that have different cutoff scores. Tertiary institutions also administer their own tests for admitting mature students. There is no limit on how many students institutions may admit, though public institutions must make sure that government- sponsored students are included. Universities enjoy more freedom than other tertiary institutions in the management of staff. As discussed in the earlier chapter, in the public universities, the Ministry of Public Service (MOPS) helps determine the number of established posts for each public university to be financed by the Ministry of Finance. However, once the number of government-financed posts are established, appointments and promotions are made by the university. For other non-university public institutions, on the other hand, the Education Service Commission makes the appointments of both academic and non-academic staff. The Ministry of Education and Sports makes the subsequent allocation of staff to individual institutions, with only limited involvement by the institution. Currently, staff promotions are treated as new appointments and made as such by the ESC. Clearly these institutions have less autonomy with regard to hiring and firing as compared to universities. Also, universities have more autonomy in the management of their curriculum as compared to other tertiary institutions whose curriculum are usually developed centrally by the BTVET and/or the national curriculum development agency. 6.3 Accountability/quality assurance The Uganda University and Other Tertiary Institutions Act theoretically granted more institutional autonomy, including limited financial autonomy. The institutions should be accountable for the use of public resources and the quality of their outputs to the bodies that sponsored them, including the government, students, parents, employers and to the general public. However, currently in Uganda tertiary education, there is neither a reliable accountability system nor a functioning quality assurance mechanism. Though it is appreciated worldwide that accountability is difficult to achieve, it is nonetheless essential to lay down transparent guidelines, to install better measures of outputs or performance, and to better align financial incentives (both individual and institutional) with these performance indicators. The lack of qualify assurance mechanisms can be primarily attributed to an unbalanced power structure within institutions, and to the confused role of the Higher Education Department, the BTVET, and the National Council for Higher Education. Further, there is also no functioning management information system. A combination of external and internal forces has allowed universities and other tertiary institutions to flourish in Uganda. But many of the new institutions have inadequate physical infrastructure and 64 questionable staff qualifications. At the system level, there are no quality assurance mechanisms apart from the traditional academic controls in the institutions. While many are anxious to expand the higher education system, there is also the feeling that doing so has diminished the quality of learning. Even in Makerere University, the drive for profit has caused overcrowding and overuse of facilities that will have long-term adverse effects on education. Worldwide, many governments have recognized that traditional methods that rely on the institutions' own review mechanisms for quality control are inadequate. Quality of higher education should be based on whether or not an institution accomplishes the goals it has established in a cost-effective manner. The role of the government should be to make transparent these standards and put in place adequate mechanisms to assess them. There seems to be three primary modes of quality assurance globally: assessment, audit, and accreditation. A recent World Bank Report, "Strengthening World Bank Support for Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Higher Education in East Asia and the Pacific" (Lenn, M. 2003) concluded that the most widely used regionally and globally, and the most beneficial for development and capacity building, is accreditation. It further defined accreditation as follows: Accreditation is an evaluation of whether an institution qualifies for a certain status and is the primary choice of governments for national systems of quality assurance. This status may have implications for the institution itself (e.g. permission to operate or eligibility for external funding) and/or its students (e.g. eligibility for grants or a professional degree). Accreditation asks "are you good enough to be approved (to confer degrees)?" Accreditation has a dual purpose: (1) quality assessment as well as (2) quality improvement and should take into consideration both inputs (e.g. how many volumes are in the library) but not without outcomes (e.g. how many titles are in the library; are they current, relevant and used). Table 28 lists countries that have already established a national evaluation or accreditation system for higher education (World Bank, 2002). A few Sub-Saharan countries including Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa have already implemented such a system. Table 28: Quality assurance systems worldwide Region National evaluation or accreditation system present Eastern Europe and Central Asia Bulgaria, Czech Rep., Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovak Rep., Slovenia East Asia and Pacific Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Rep. of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore Latin America and the Caribbean Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, México Middle East and North Africa Israel, Jordan South Asia India Sub-Saharan Africa Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa Western Europe and North Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, America Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, UK, the US. Source: World Bank, 2002. 65 Encouragingly, though, the National Council for Higher Education has already taken the initiative to review and develop registration and guidelines for accrediting universities within the current legal framework. The draft Checklist of Quality and Institutional Capacity Indicators for Assessment of Institutions and Programmes under the new Act, include the following important items, and each item is rated based on a 5 point scale: ideal; good; acceptable; can be improved; and unacceptable: · Land for Campus/Urban · Land: Rural · Governance · Infrastructure · Academic Staff · Educational Facilities · Financial Health · Facilities for the Disabled · Gender Sensitivity · Strategic Plan · Publications by Staff · Research Projects Won by Staff · Percentage of Graduates Employed in Year of Graduation In short, despite the provisions in the new Act, the current governance of tertiary education can be summarized as follows: a) Although there is a Higher Education and Other Tertiary Institution Act, the legal framework for tertiary education is not yet comprehensive. Serious gaps in the Act include financing strategies, principles for allocating public funds, incentives for private institutions, accountability and operationalized quality assurance mechanisms. b) The Act did not stipulate clearly the role of the National Council for Higher Education and how its functions should be financed. The capacity of the Council needs to be strengthened to allow it to perform its functions. c) The government agencies (Higher Education Department and the Technical and Vocational Education Department) are weak and they seem to overlap in the management of some tertiary technical institutions. d) Institutional governance differs by the kind of institution but real power usually lies with 66 the heads of the institutions. e) Institutional governance lacks the flexibility for reform because of either too much complexity and autonomy in some public universities, or because of too much direct government controls in other tertiary institutions. f) Financial autonomy is limited especially for tertiary technical and vocational institutions and national teacher colleges. g) Academic freedom is limited especially for non-tertiary institutions in the management of staff and curriculum. h) Quality assurance and accountability mechanisms are lacking. 67 7. COST AND FINANCING Financing of higher education in Uganda, as in many SSA countries, relies both on government as well as private funding. Private expenditures used to play a relatively minor role. However, the proportion of financing contributed from private sources have increased recently, due primarily to the dual-track tuition system whereby fees are charged to students who are not sponsored by the government. Public funds for HE are allocated entirely to public institutions. While public universities can supplement their revenue by charging fees, private institutions rely exclusively on fees and other donations. 7.1 Public expenditure 7.1.1 Allocation of public expenditures Corresponding to the three departments of Higher Education, BTVET, and Teacher Education, the public funds are disbursed to the public institutions in three distinctive ways: For the five public universities (Makerere University, Mbarara University, Kyambogo University, Gulu University, and Uganda Polytechnic Kyambogo) which are clearly under the Department of Higher Education, government funds are disbursed in two blocks: one for recurrent and the other for development. For recurrent budget, each public institution receives from the Ministry of Education and Sports a block grant or "subvention". The amount of the subvention is calculated based on the number of government students and the "unit cost" which the Ministry thinks is reasonable for that particular institution. Often the government "unit cost" is set very high, more than twice the amount of annual fee paid by a private fee-paying student, as it usually includes a substantial proportion of welfare costs. Johnstone (2003) calls this scheme "an even more aggressive dual track tuition policy, arguably the most striking single example of institutional cost-sharing in SSA." For example, Makerere University received a subvention of Ush26 billion for FY04, which is based on about 9000 students at a unit cost of Ush3million per student (private students in Makerere pay an annual fee of about Ush1-1.5million). Almost exclusively, public institutions pay their regular staff out of the subvention. Public universities also receive development budgets from the Ministry, though the development budget fluctuates significantly from year to year and tend to favor Makerere University in general. The other tertiary institutions are administratively under the Department of Business, Technical, and Vocational Education and Training. In FY03, all public technical colleges, colleges of commerce and national health training colleges had received recurrent budget support from the Ministry in one block. It is not clear how the subsidy to each institution is calculated, but most likely it is based on the number of public posts in the institution. The tertiary institutions also received development budget. However, the availability and disbursement of development budget to these institutions fluctuates much more than those to the universities. In other words, institutions almost cannot count on the Ministry for development budget support. The 10 National Teacher Colleges fall under the Teacher Education Department. They all receive both recurrent and development budget from the Ministry. For recurrent, wages and non-wages 68 budgets are separated. Again, the amount of wage subsidy is based on the staff pay roll. And the amount of recurrent budget is based on other inputs. NTCs have the least financial autonomy compared to the universities or other tertiary institutions. In short, institutions receive much of the public funding based on the inputs at the institution--that is, the staff; it is not related to what they actually produce in terms of outputs--namely, the quality and quantity of graduates. The funding split between different sub-sectors of HE, and particularly the split between academic and vocational HE, is historically based, with no policy consideration given to what the split should be given the country's current interests. There is not even a mechanism within government to explore and consider such strategic priorities within HE. There are also some government institutions that receive block grants regardless of their needs. The distribution of the grant monies seem to be random. For example, Kasozi et al. (2003) reported that Nyabyeya Forestry College receives Ush40 million per annum, while the Hotel and Tourism Institute Jinja receives an intermittent disbursement ranging between Ush20 to 15 million per month. These uneven disbursements make it very difficult for institutions to plan and operate. Table 29 below tabulates in detail the way in which government allocates its recurrent budget to tertiary institutions: through the Higher Education Department, the BTVET, and the teacher education Department within Secondary Education. It also lists the amounts of recurrent budget allocated to these institutions from 2001/02 to 2005/06 as stipulated in the latest government Medium Term Budget Framework. 69 Table 29: Tertiary Institutions Recurrent Budget 2001/02-2005/06 (in Ush billion) 2001/2 2002/3 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 Estim. Planned Planned Planned Planned 1. UNDER HIGHER EDUCATION DEPARTMENT Capacity of Sub Sector Expanded Makerere University program1 26.65 28.29 26.29 29.99 31.09 Makerere University business school program2 2.43 2.91 2.91 2.96 2.99 Mbarara University 4.59 5.58 7.19 7.36 7.39 Kyambogo University 3.16 3.16 3.29 3.50 3.52 Gulu University 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 UMI 0.44 0.40 0.40 0.41 0.42 UPK Grants 0.42 Contingency for Public Universities Govt Students 3.37 3.37 Research in Private Universities 0.20 0.10 Contribute to African Institute ofr Capacity Dev. (Nairobi) 0.35 0.35 0.39 0.40 Improved Ministry Operations Higher Education Dept. Budget 2.31 2.42 1.65 1.71 1.74 council for Higher Education Budget 0.20 0.30 0.60 0.66 0.69 Funds for supporting Open University 0.20 0.15 0.00 0.00 0.00 Contributions to Inter University Council 0.30 0.45 0.45 0.50 0.52 Joint Admission Board 0.05 0.06 0.06 Ind. Train/Exam fees/TP/Living our allowance 0.40 2. UNDER BTVET Uganda Technical Colleges 0.35 Uganda Colleges of Commerce 0.58 National Health Training Colleges 1.14 1.49 1.31 1.39 1.44 District Health training schools 1.93 1.89 1.89 2.14 2.16 Dept. training institutions 1.39 1.66 1.58 1.70 1.76 BTVET Dept. 6.46 6.00 2.17 2.22 2.25 3. UNDER TEACHER EDUCATION SECONDARY NTCs -Wage 2.166 2.193 2.303 2.303 2.303 NTCs- Non-Wage 3.147 3.101 2.629 2.891 3.036 Note: From Summary Education Medium Term Budget Framework June 2003 The system provides no incentives for institutions to deliver education more efficiently, and severely limits the flexibility of institutions to respond to their local circumstances or to change. Further, with such an inflexible budgeting process, it is no surprise that public funds are distributed inequitably, nor is the support related to student enrollment. Kasozi et al. (2003) found that the amount of public funds received by institutions has no relationship with the total student enrollment (without increasing government scholarships). 70 Table 30: Public support and student enrolment Share of public funds Share of tertiary student received enrolment Makerere University 72 percent 80 percent National Teachers College Mubende 1 percent 4 percent Mbarara University of Science and 10 percent 2 percent Technology Uganda Martyr's University, Nkozi 3 percent 1 percent Islamic University, Mbale 5 percent 4 percent Uganda Christian University, Mukono 3 percent 3 percent Source: Kasozi et al., 2003. The Unit Cost Study of Tertiary Institutions in Uganda. 7.1.2 The Myth of Government-sponsored students In Uganda, when talking about public financing for higher education, one will frequently hear about government subventions or block grants to public universities as well as government-sponsored students. This erroneously gives an impression that public recurrent financing is disbursed in both mechanisms. In reality, there is only one mechanism for recurrent budget, that is the block grant, as discussed in Section 7.1.1. There are no additional recurrent funds flowing into the public institutions beyond the amounts indicated in Table 30a. It so happens that the amount of the subvention is calculated based on the number of government students the institution is obligated to take and the unit cost which the Ministry thinks is reasonable for that particular institution. For example, Makerere University received a subvention of Ush26 billion for FY04, which is based on about 9,000 students at a unit cost of Ush3million per student. In theory, Makerere will have fulfilled its obligation to the government by simply educating the 9000 students. However, almost every public university ends up admitting more students as means to generate more revenue. Those who are not sponsored by the government are all private fee-paying. Private students pay an annual fee of about Ush1-1.5 million. So total recurrent revenue for a public university consists of both the grant from the government and revenues from fee incomes. The government now sponsors about 4,000 new entrants into the system every year to the best- performing secondary graduates, which are enrolled only in public institutions. There are two main policy reasons for government to provide public support for students: (a) to meet the needs of the national economy and (b) to reduce inequality in access to tertiary education. But the current plan in Uganda is not achieving either objective. Since the government does not dictate the areas in which the government-sponsored students must specialize, the institution must often decide the student's major. Many times, the institutions place government-sponsored students in the least demanded majors to maximize the profit from private-fee- paying students. As a result, the program is not producing the manpower outputs in the fields the country most needs for its social and economic well-being. 71 The second reason for government support would be to help reduce educational inequities between students--that is, regional disparities in the quality of or access to educational opportunities. This would require that the government scholarship target students deemed disadvantaged. Those who perform better in A-level examinations tend to graduate from better performing government and private boarding schools, whose fees are so high that only the wealthier families can afford them. According to one MOES study, "Student Admissions on State Scholarship to Makerere University from 1996/97­2000/2001," on average 65 percent of the total scholarships were awarded to students from the twenty top-ranked A-level schools. These top A-level schools are "First World" schools which are well endowed in teachers and other facilities, and affordable only to children from rich families (Liang, 2002). Students not privileged enough to attend elite preparatory schools are severely disadvantaged when competing on the national A-level exams. Currently, the government augments the A-level scores of women and athletes by adding points directly to their raw A-level scores before considering which students should receive funding. However, A-level scores are still the most important determinant of sponsorship, and this program for helping women and athletes does not address the entire problem of inequity in educational access. In addition, the plan is further suspect, when a cursory examination suggests that the application and success rates of females are much the same as for males. It is unclear whether athletes are any more educationally disadvantaged than other groups of young people with strong extra-curricular interests. Students from deprived schools in regional or rural areas are a much more appropriate target for receiving special government funding. A simple way to allow for their disadvantage would be to add A-level points to their scores, perhaps weighted according to the extent of their school's deprivation. There is also a proposal to counter regional disparities by district quotas of students. This would be more complex to administer than enhancing A-level scores, and run the risk of lowering HE entry standards. 7.1.3 Implications of the current public financing It is widely understood now that financing mechanisms can be used as policy strategies to achieve overall sectoral objectives in coverage, equity, and efficiency. This is especially true with regard to public financing which is controlled by the government. However, the discussions in the previous sections indicate that there are some serious shortcomings with the way public funds are allocated in higher education in Uganda, quite apart from the volume of detailed administrative work, and therefore the delays and frustrations. · From a policy perspective, the lack of governmental oversight in the distribution of government funds can cause inappropriate allocations within HE institutions. This is true even with government students at Makerere University. The University is allowed to allocate funds to courses without any government input. As a result, government students are sometimes denied the newest and best courses in order to fill spaces in the departments that are less 72 popular with private students. This is unacceptable, both in terms of the use of government funds and, especially, because of the misdirection of what are often the country's best students. The current system does not allow the government to use its funds to influence university policies towards the interests of the nation. · The system provides no incentives for institutions to deliver education more efficiently despite the fact that the importance of financial autonomy for tertiary institutions has long been documented (Eisemon and Salmi, 1993). · The arrangements severely limit the flexibility of institutions to respond to their local circumstances or to change. It may be better to fund institutions on the basis of the students they educate. This idea is not as drastic as it sounds since the Ministry of Finance is de facto implementing it through the sponsorship of government students, though on a limited scale. The change would mean that in effect the government would be "buying" the production of graduates on behalf of the nation, or, in effect, buying places at institutions in much the same way as private students, or their parents, do. In doing this, government would be ensuring that public funds are used to produce the outputs for which government intended them. Government would have to develop a strategy for determining the numbers of places that it wished to fund--in terms of broad academic subject areas and various vocational areas. These broad number targets would be an important part of the proposed HE strategy. They should be based on an analysis of market changes, student demand and other developments, and should be reviewed annually. Government would then encourage institutions to bid (by subject or specialty) to be a provider of government places, with contracts awarded on the basis of quality, geography and, perhaps, price. This would require a sophisticated process that may take a while to develop. More simply, government places could be allocated, or negotiated, between institutions on the basis of their past performance. This whole process is all predicated on the existence of adequate quality control checks. The maximum level of public funds available for each place might be lined to, but not determined by, the program's costs. Within a government limit, unit government funding could be set at the fee level that the institution charged its private students, thus effectively abolishing the current dual-track tuition policy. Several MOES officials have confirmed that this can be done by simply removing the welfare component of the current government subsidies. The controversy surrounding cost sharing in higher education is well understood. However, worldwide experiences have also shown that it is more politically acceptable for the government to withdraw from subsidizing the student welfare. From the government's perspective, a major advantage of a unit-based funding system would be that institutions would have to learn to operate more efficiently. Once the places had been filled with students and all the calculations done, the resulting public funds would then be passed to the institution in a single block to spend as they thought fit. For the four public universities in particular, there would be one further management implication, namely, there would no longer be any distinction between government and private students, as is already the case in 73 most other institutions. This would require these universities to adapt to a fundamentally different management approach. If the various HE institutions were divested into agencies, then all the above could apply to each of the institutions in each sub-sector. Alternatively, the arrangements could be applied only to the universities, with a more limited version for those institutions that were not yet divested. Funds for development could be distributed on the basis of a separate bidding process in which institutions could present their case for new investment. This would provide another rationale for distributing public funds to private institutions. One of the main benefits of this approach is that it would make the whole system more responsive to needs and to change. It would also abolish much of MOF's operational workload on HE, which would mean that it then would have more time to focus on matters of macro policy rather than detailed micro financial management. 7.1.4 Share of public education recurrent expenditure devoted to tertiary education Though tertiary education had a higher share of Uganda's total education budget in the early 1990s (27 percent of development budget and 24 percent of recurrent budget), the situation has changed recently. Despite the tremendous enrollment increase, in 2001/02 only 16 percent of the total education expenditure was spent on tertiary education including the three departments of higher education department, BTVET, and the National Teacher Colleges. (Table 31 and 32). Within the 16 percent, only 11 percent went to the public universities, 1 percent for the overhead by the Department of Higher Education, and another 4 percent went to the BTVET tertiary institutions and the 10 National Teacher Colleges. This means that there may be room for further increases in the tertiary education share. The average share of tertiary education budget, not including teacher education and technical and vocational education, in Sub-Saharan African is about 16.7 percent. However, the room for increase is limited and may not even be realized, given the ministry's current focus (rightly) on Universal Primary Education and an increasing emphasis on secondary education. The funding for tertiary education, though important, will have to be weighed in the balance of the full range of needs of the sector. Most importantly, the first priority would be to maximize the use of the current allocation. As mentioned earlier, public funds are not managed efficiently. Table 31: Primary, secondary, BTVET, tertiary shares of total education recurrent budget 2001/2 2002/3 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 Estim. Planned Planned Planned Planned Primary Education 65% 63% 65% 66% 66% Secondary Education 16% 18% 18% 18% 17% BTVET 4% 4% 4% 3% 3% Tertiary (without tertiary BTVET/NTC) 12% 12% 11% 11% 11% Others 3% 3% 2% 2% 2% Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Note: From Summary Education Medium Term Budget Framework June 2003 74 Table 32: Shares of Tertiary Budget by definition 2001/2 2002/3 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 Estim. Planned Planned Planned Planned %age share for public universities 0.11 0.11 0.10 0.10 0.10 %age of total higher education including overheads 0.12 0.12 0.11 0.11 0.11 %age of tertiary total (higher/tertiary BTVET/NTC) 0.16 0.16 0.14 0.14 0.13 Figure 10: Education expenditure by level of education 100% 11% 11% 11% 90% 12% 12% 4% 4% 4% 3% 3% 80% 16% 17% Others 18% 18% 18% 70% Tertiary (without tertiary 60% BTVET/NTC) BTVET 50% 40% Secondary Education 65% 65% 66% 66% 30% 63% Primary Education 20% 10% 0% 2001/2 2002/3 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 Estim. Planned Planned Planned Planned Source: Summary Education Medium Term Budget Framework June 2003 Despite the overall decline of public funds for tertiary education, public institutions still rely heavily on them. Table 33 lists the proportion of total income that comes from the government, including capitation grants and all other direct transfers (Kasozi et al., 2003). Overall, the government shoulders slightly less than two-thirds of total recurrent budget for Makere University, almost all recurrent budget for Mbarara University, about half of the recurrent budget for the NTCs, and between one-third to one-half of the budget for colleges of technology and commerce. Health related tertiary institutions seemed to get an especially high share of budget from the government in 2000/2001. The most recent budget information from the Ministry of Finance indicates that the share of public recurrent budget may have decreased further in the public universities, due to increased share of private expenditures and stagnant public expenditures. 75 Table 33: Proportion of income from the government (Kasozi et al., 2003) % from government Makerere University 0.63 Mbarara University 0.95 NTC Kakoba 0.45 NTC Mubende 0.60 Arapai Agricultural College 0.84 Clinical Officers College Mbale 0.72 School of Hygiene Mbale 0.72 Technical college Masaka 0.56 College of Commerce Aduku 0.33 Hotel and Tourism Institute Jinja 0.26 7.1.5 Tertiary public recurrent per pupil expenditure The total tertiary public recurrent expenditure for 2000/2001 amounted to Ush56.7 billion, of which Ush37.3billion were directly transferred to the four major public universities Makerere University, Mbarara University, Uganda Management Institute (UMI), Gulu University, and Kyambogo University which combined UNISE, ITEK, and UPK. Without including the overheads incurred by the Department of Higher Education and other management expenses and including both government-sponsored and private fee-paying students, the average unit of public subsidy (direct transfer) for the major public universities stood roughly at about US$500 per student, or 155 percent of the GNP per capita for the same year (Table 34). This level of public subsidy per student is smaller than the Sub-Saharan African average of 422 percent, but much bigger than the world average of 77 percent and the OECD average of 26 percent (Table 35). Table 34: Tertiary Institutions ­ public subsidy (direct transfer only) per student enrolled (2001/02) Unit Unit Unit Direct transfer from MOES transfer transfer transfer/ (in Ush billion) Enrollment (in Ush) (n US$) GNPPC Makerere University total 29.08 32464 895761.5 459 1.44 Mbarara University 4.59 960 4781250 2452 7.66 Kyambogo University 3.16 2742 1152443 591 1.85 Uganda Management Institute 0.44 2394 183793 94 0.29 4 Public Universities (average) 966546 496 1.55 Technical colleges (2003/04) 0.35 1400 250000 128 0.40 Colleges of Commerce 0.58 2637 219946.9 113 0.35 Health/medical 3.2 1762 1816118 931 2.91 NTC 5.32 21164 251370.3 129 0.40 Note: Direct transfer only, not including overheads GNP/PC was $320 World Development Indicators 2001 76 Table 35: Public Expenditure per Student as % of GNP per capita Table: Expenditure on Tertiary Education per student as % of GNP per capita 1980 1995 Low & Middle Income 259 91 East Asia & Pacific 149 76 Europe & Central Asia 67 36 Latin America & Caribbean 19 43 Middle East & N. Africa 194 82 South Asia 143 74 Sub-Saharan Africa 802 422 World 163 77 High income 39 26 Source: Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise. Expenditure per pupil varies by program. The program most costly to the government was at the Mbarara University of Science and Technology, where the government alone invested about US$2,452 per student, almost 8 times per capita GNP. Of the four public universities, Mbarara enrolls only 2 percent of total tertiary students in these institutions but absorbs 10­12 percent of total government recurrent budget devoted to these public universities. The previous analysis of teacher pay reveals that the high per pupil expenditure in Mbarara is not due to high teacher pay. The high per pupil expenditure more likely results from the extremely low pupil to teacher ratio of 5 because of the requirements of the medical curriculum with its rural development studies component. Anecdotally, employers often think that Mbarara is producing doctors appropriate for rustic work in rural areas, and virtually all of Mbarara graduates get employed instantly. Nevertheless, per student subsidy of US$2,452 may still be too high to be justified. One really wonders about the quality of education provided if the institutions are not able to attract many private fee-paying students. Makerere University and Kyambogo University on balance have rather similar unit transfer of between US$459 and US$591, equivalent to about 1.5-2 times of GNP per capita. Uganda Management Institute has a relatively low level of public subsidy per student of only US$91, less than one third of GNP per capita. Technical Colleges, Colleges of Commerce, and the National Teacher Colleges have, on average, a similar unit public subsidy per student of about US$113-129, about 30-40 percent of GNP per capita. A relatively more expensive program is found at the health and medical tertiary-level institutions. In financial year 2001/02, the government direct transfer per student to these 77 institutions amounted to US$931, 291 percent of GNP per capita and almost twice the average subsidy per university. Real unit costs will be much higher than the public expenditure/subsidy per pupil reported here, since households and institutions may also incur expenditures--such as student fees, lodging, transportation, supplies, entertainment, etc.--which were not included in this calculation of government subsidy. Development costs and costs associated with the Higher Education Department and other overheads were also omitted. 7.2 Tertiary private expenditure While, in nominal terms, government funding has grown minimally over the years, and in some cases has been stagnant, private funding has grown considerably. In Makerere University, for example, funding from private sources has grown from as little as less than Ush500 million in 1993/94 to over Ush18 billion by 2001/02. The unit cost study done by the Makerere Institute of Social Research found that, of the fifteen institutions surveyed (including Makerere University), total private funds generated was Ush22 billion, as compared to public funding of Ush30 billion (Kasozi et al., 2003). The truth is the proportion of financing contributed by the private sector now almost equals that of the government. This trend reflects the increasing social demand in Uganda for higher education. It also reflects the government's intention to tap into private resources as a major means for tertiary sector expansion. It further testifies to the success of the dual-track tuition policy in the major public universities such as Makerere in so far as augmenting the revenues. According to the World Bank/UNESCO Task Force (2000, P.54), Makerere "...moved from the brink of collapse to the point where it aspires to become one of East Africa's preeminent intellectual and capacity-building resources, as it was in the 1960s." 7.2.1 Estimating tertiary private expenditure by using household survey Private expenditures refer to expenditures incurred by the household when it sends a child to a tertiary program. The 1999/2000 Uganda Integrated Household Survey did include questions on household education expenditures where total household expenditures on education were reported instead of expenditure per child. Estimates of expenditures associated with having a household member in an educational institution were derived by regressing total household expenditure on education on the set of variables for household members enrolled at each level. The regression coefficient on the number of household members enrolled can be interpreted as the additional expenditure associated with having one additional household member enrolled in that level of education. To statistically control for the effects of differences in household income, total cash income (from enterprise and employment) was also included as an argument in the regression equation. 78 Results of the analysis are shown in Table 36. The first equation (Model 1) is based on the entire sample of 10,696 households and shows the estimated impact of one additional household member in a specific level of education on total household educational expenditure (statistically controlling for family income). The equation explains over 50 percent (adjusted R2) of the variance in spending within the sample. Only those variables that are statistically significant at the 0.05 level are included in the equation. For this reason, apprenticeship was not included in this model. The model suggests that having one additional household member enrolled in a university is associated with increased annual expenditure (on education) of Ush763,118 (US$477), and having one member enrolled in a post-secondary or diploma program is linked to an increased annual expenditure of between Ush224,204 (US$140) and Ush378,973 (US$237). If we compared the average private expenditures to the average public expenditures estimated in the previous section, we will find that the private sector contributes now almost half of total financing for higher education. These are our best estimates of the average private costs for tertiary education. To the extent that extended family members, or other sources, also contribute to educational expenditure, they may be biased downward. Compared to per capita GDP of US$280, the levels of private cost for tertiary, especially university, programs are very high. 79 Table 36: Regression analysis of household education expenditure ­ UNHS (Levine 2001: Financing Options for Expansion of Post-primary Education). Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Dependent Variable -- TOTAL ED TOTAL ED FEES & PTA BOARDING > EXPENDITURE EXPENDITURE Sample N 10,696 6,724 6,724 6,724 Adjusted R2 0.527 0.552 0.449 0.373 Coefficient Sig. Coefficient Sig. Coefficient Sig. Coefficient Sig. (Constant) -34,987 0.0000 -44,285 0.0000 -29,696 0.0000 -15,310 0.0000 nursery 46,441 0.0000 36,673 0.0006 32,325 0.0006 primary 13,186 0.0000 12,980 0.0000 7,893 0.0007 post-primary 192,892 0.0000 202,019 0.0000 88,313 0.0046 91,660 0.0000 secondary 241,271 0.0000 238,042 0.0000 162,367 0.0000 51,168 0.0000 post-secondary 224,204 0.0000 234,666 0.0000 176,400 0.0000 48,928 0.0000 diploma 378,973 0.0000 400,333 0.0000 298,441 0.0000 76,894 0.0000 university 763,188 0.0000 746,015 0.0000 605,592 0.0000 107,865 0.0000 apprenticeship Total cash inc. (000) 438 0.0000 54 0.0000 385 0.0000 10 0.0000 Model 5 Model 6 Model 7 Dependent Variable -- UNIFORMS BOOKS & OTHER > SUPPLIES Sample N 6,724 6,724 6,724 Adjusted R2 0.487 0.518 0.291 Coefficient Sig. Coefficient Sig. Coefficient Sig. (Constant) 714 0.0920 -144 0.8157 -131 0.8717 nursery 3,254 0.0000 1,664 0.0375 3,147 0.0026 primary 2,086 0.0000 1,373 0.0000 1,590 0.0000 post-primary 7,157 0.0001 10,790 0.0018 secondary 7,575 0.0000 10,091 0.0000 7,022 0.0000 post-secondary 2,276 0.0201 3,959 0.0058 diploma 2,818 0.0418 15,518 0.0000 7,137 0.0070 university 3,407 0.0225 16,106 0.0000 13,333 0.0000 apprenticeship 6,913 0.0320 Total cash inc. (000) 1 0.0000 3 0.0000 1 0.0000 7.2.2 Estimating academic fees paid by private students Usually, academic fees are the major part of household expenditures on tertiary education. To cross- check information, we included in the institution survey the amount of various fees that students are paying. Unfortunately, only nineteen institutions responded to the relevant questions. 80 Table 37 indicates that universities (without including teacher training colleges) generally charge academic fees of US$1,092 per academic year. The study, "Makerere University in Transition 1993­ 2000: Opportunities and Challenges," also reported academic fees for Makerere and selected universities. Table 38 below shows that the average academic fee for a B.A. is about US$1,000 per academic year. It needs to be noted that these are the fees charged to private students. Government- sponsored students in public universities do not pay the fees and further they receive additional welfare benefits. National Teacher Colleges charge much lower fees than the universities, though the NTCs seem to have a varied fee structure, with two NTCs reporting charging no student fees and two others reporting charging around US$180 per academic year. Therefore, the average fee for NTC is about US$94 per academic year. Other technical and vocational programs also seem to have an inconsistent fee structure. While the average technical and vocational program charges about US$150 per academic year, some programs, such as UNISE and UTC Elgon, reported charging no fees, and others, such as the School of Hygiene Mbale, charge up to US$562 per academic year. The Crest Crane Hotel and Tourism Training Institute each charge up to US$318 per academic year, despite the fact that they are both public institutions. Table 37: Average academic fees by program (data from institution survey) Universities 1092.5 NTC $94.06 Other tec. & voc $150.08 Table 38: Academic fees in selected universities Course Makerere Uganda Christian University-- Uganda Martyrs' University Mukono University BBA US$993 US$662 US$1258 BA/ED US$536 US$603 N/a LLB US$795 US$795 N/a Source: Makerere University in Transition 1993­2000: Opportunities and Challenges. Thus, we conclude that, while the universities charge on average about US$1,000 for fees, the NTC on average charge about US$94, one-tenth of that of the universities, and the other technical and vocational programs on average charge about US$150. The average household expenditure of US$477 for universities derived from the household survey is much lower, as compared to the average tuition fees charged by the universities. This is primarily because about one third of university students are sponsored by the government and do not pay fees. 81 7.3 Comparing public subsidy per student and average private expenditure, and unit cost Assuming that institutions do not incur any additional expenditure, other than government subsidies and income from student fees, we get a total tertiary unit cost by adding government subsidy per student to household expenditure per student. Table 39 lists the average public transfer (total transfer divided by enrollment), average private expenditures, total unit cost (average public transfer plus private expenditure), academic fees charged to private students, and the public transfer per government student in Makerere University. Table 39: Average expenditures per student: public, private, and total (in US$). TOTAL unit cost (average Academic Public Average public public transfer fees transfer per transfer (total Average + average (charged government transfer divided private private to private student in by enrollment) expenditures expenditure) students) Makerere 4 Public Universities (average) 496 477 973 1,000 1,500 Technical/Commerce/NTC 113-129 140-237 253-366 94-150 N/A From the above tabulation of various costs, we conclude the following:First, the average private expenditure for tertiary education is high. Even the cheapest program at an NTC can cost 50 percent of an average income per person (GDP per capita of US$280). Thus, poor households may have difficulty affording such costs. Second, despite the high level of private expenditure, government subsidy per pupil is also very high, especially in the universities. Public expenditure per university student is almost as much as the private expenditure. Considering that most of the beneficiaries are from the country's wealthy families, the tertiary financing system is regressive. Third, average unit cost for universities of US$973 is very close to average academic fees charged, at about US$1,000 per student, indicating that fees are set at appropriate levels given the current levels of inputs. However, the fees charged by technical colleges, colleges of commerce, and NTCs comprise only half of the real unit cost. 82 The public transfer per government student for Makerere University of US$1,538 is set at a level which is 50 percent higher than the average unit cost. Thus, about half of the financing of tertiary education in Uganda is contributed by the government whereas the other half is contributed by private sector through fees. Finally, many university students do not pay full academic fees, since the average private expenditure per student is only half the average academic fees charged. This means that many university students are benefiting from government or other agency sponsorship (one third of university enrollment is on government sponsorship). 7.4. Options for improving the effectiveness and increasing the overall financing for higher education The first option, of course, is to introduce reform measures into public financing strategies to improve the effectiveness of current public expenditures on higher education. This will be mainly in the areas of increasing the financial autonomy of tertiary institutions, aligning the award of government sponsorship with national economic development needs, and targeting public resources to the more needy. A second option is to increase the share of the higher education budget from the current low level of 11 percent to a SSA average of 15­16 percent. This option needs to be weighted against government priorities in other sub-sectors of education, particularly primary education. A third option, which will be difficult, is to increase the level of student fees. However, the implementation of cost recovery measures will have to be coupled with strategies to provide student assistance, either through student loans or scholarships. This relates to the first option because when institutions are given more autonomy, they will be able to set their own fee levels. In addition, institutions may be asked to generate their own funds through, for example, renting out facilities, research, organizing seminars and short-term training for employees, or through donations from the private sector. Though a student loan scheme has never been practiced in Uganda at any level, the Department of Higher Education in the Ministry of Education is fully on board on this issue. A consultant has been recruited to assess the feasibility of loan scheme in Uganda and to work out the implementation details. The Ministry of Education and Sports is in the process of preparing a bill on the Higher Education Students' Loan Board, which will soon be presented in the parliament. In year 2000, a group of the MOES officials visited Kenya to study the higher education loan scheme in Kenya. Oceng (2000) reported that The delegation assessment is that the Higher Education Loan Board, which is in operation in Kenya, is suitable for Uganda but the following issues need to be addressed: i) Issuing of National Identity card to Ugandans and computerizing the system to 83 ease monitoring of loanees. ii) The Government should have a majority share in a bank with a national network to enable loanees to receive preferential treatment on issues of minimum balance and bank charges. Private banks which are driven entirely by profit motive may never have a national network, nor accept to grant preferential treatment. iii) Affirmative action should be instituted for the disadvantaged districts in Uganda to enhance equitable access. The present system of entry to University negates this. iv) More sources of funding should be explored by carrying out more study visits to countries with success stories in the loan scheme, preferably from Southern Africa and West Africa and one country from outside Africa. Nevertheless, based on evidence from other countries who have implemented a higher education loan scheme, we understand that currently Uganda lacks required institutions and mentality for the loan scheme to be successful. The country will need technical and financial assistance to build enough capacity in the country for such a scheme to be operational even on a pilot basis. Johnston (2003) compiled the following table where he listed various cost-sharing policies being implemented in selected SSA countries and the current thinking of student loan scheme in these countries. It is clear that the overall assssment of the student loan experience seems to be rather negative: Table 40: Student Loan Policies and Programs in Selected African Countries Student Loan Policies and Programs East Africa Government considering (as of 2003) a loan program modeled after the Australian HESC (in spite likely Ethiopia problems with multiple and unreported sources of income and minimization of parental contributions) Comprehensive loan program introduced in the 1970s, but failed with virtually no cost recovery. Kenya Program reinitiated in 1995 as Higher Education Loans Board, with mandate for "near self sufficiency". A so-called "loan" scheme implemented in 1993-94 as part of Phase II of cost-sharing to cover a part of lodging and food costs. As of 2003, no interest rate stipulated, no collection machinery, and no Tanzania recovery. Uganda Under discussion: no operational student loan program as of 2003 Southern Africa Botswana Under discussion: no operational student loan program as of 2003 Mozambique Under discussion: no operational student loan program as of 2003 Successful means-tested income continent loan program collected by employers. Reaching about 20% South Africa of student population. Interest is 2% real; repayment is 3-8% of income over threshold. West Africa After collapse of 1970s plans, a new scheme in 1988 linked to Soc. Sec. Nat. Ins. Trust, the Ghana contributions to which guaranteed repayments. High subsidies and collection difficulties persist. As in Ghana, the 1972 Nigerian Student Loan Board failed to collect and was suspended in 1992. A Nigeria new Education Bank is constructing measures to increase collections and interest rates. Comprehensive program of small means-tested loans, "Prets Foner," begun in 1994: for 2nd and 3rd Burkina Faso cycle students: subsidized and income contingent@1/6 salary; little or no recovery to date. Source: The University at Buffalo Center for Comparative and Global Studies in Education International Higher Education Finance and Accessibility Project. 84 8. REFORM AND INNOVATIONS The earlier chapters of the Report have mostly focused areas where improvements can be made. It is important also to bear in mind that great strides have been made in the tertiary sector in Uganda in the last decade. In addition to the mushrooming of private institutions, within the public sector, important reforms have been implemented. Although still small in scale and mostly limited to Makerere University, the reforms and innovations indicate the beginning of the reform era and point to future directions for the entire tertiary system in Uganda. During the past decade, Makerere University has been able to move from the brink of collapse to the point where it aspires to become a preeminent intellectual and capacity building center. Student enrollment increased by almost four-fold. In addition, the university instigated major improvements in the physical and academic infrastructure and drastically reduced its traditional financial dependence upon the state. This Chapter briefly summarizes the context, innovations, and future challenges to Makerere University in particular and to the entire tertiary sector in general. 8.1 Historical context By an Act of Parliament on July 1, 1970, Makerere University became an independent national university of the Republic of Uganda. But the years 1971­1986 saw a period of political mismanagement and underfunding, and by 1993 Makerere University was in a state of chaos. Central administration had becoming remote from faculty and students, and management and governance had come to a halt. Teaching and learning had plummeted as student welfare declined and experienced staff fled the institution. Student riots broke out, and infrastructure was devastated. 8.2 Innovation and reform process In 1993 the reform process began. Innovations took the following structure: Increasing and managing resources. Fee-paying students were admitted, and commercial units and business enterprises were established. In addition, the administration began building stronger alumni relations, and groups such as Makerere Convocation and Friends of Makerere (FOMAC) were formed. This is so far the most important reform program undertaken. The dual-track tuition policy, despite its weaknesses, has proved to be very effective in augmenting the institution's revenue. Curriculum and academic restructuring. Teaching programs have been greatly expanded and diversified, with over forty to fifty new demand-driven courses added. The semester system has now replaced the term system, and evening, long-distance, and short-term courses have been introduced. To monitor quality, there is now a Senate Standing Academic Committee on Quality Assurance. Increased access. The student population has expanded from 6,352 in 1990/91 to 22,000 in 85 1999/2000. Regional and other imbalances in admissions have been addressed with affirmative action programs, and the number of female students has increased from 12 percent in 1989 to a current 43 percent. Improvements in the quality of student life. Students' learning, living, and feeding conditions on campus are being improved. Developing human and physical assets. Seventy-six percent of the established positions have been filled by new staff, and salaries have been increased. Meanwhile, new buildings have been erected, and large faculties have been transformed into constituent colleges. Better links with donors and focused use of donor funds. These include: NORAD-sponsored activities ADB-funded activities SIDA/SAREC funded activities Carnegie/gender related activities Rockefeller/World Bank I@Mak.Com activities (Capacity Building at Makerere University for Decentralization). New management and governance style. Relations between administration and students have improved as the power centers are now working in harmony. Attitudes towards the administration have changed for the better, and planning processes are now participatory, including the development of a University Strategic Plan. Taking advantage of ICT. The university has developed and implemented an ICT master plan. It is setting up a Local Area Network (LAN) and constructing a new Institute of Computer Science Building. Gender mainstreaming. As well as an affirmative action program that has allowed female students access to university by adding an additional 1.5 points to their scores, the university has enlarged the Gender and Women's Studies Department and created a Gender Mainstreaming Office at the university. The university also employs gender sensitivity in formulating university policies. These reforms are now being scrutinized both internally and externally. Though the official attitude remains cautiously optimistic, the following challenges still remain: 8.2.1 Challenges Internally, power needs to be devolved more from the center, and the financial base is still inadequate to ensure high standards of education and research capacity. Units and faculties have developed unevenly, and student and staff welfare need more improvement. The ICT strategic plan has yet to be fully implemented, and the physical and teaching capacities are not ready to meet the demands of the 86 increased enrollment. At the national level, the curricula has to be relevant to the developmental needs of the country while responding to the state's emerging social, political, and economic policies. Meanwhile, the emergence of new universities (more than ten new universities in the past five years) increases competition for Makerere. Low incomes, especially in the rural areas will continue to make it difficult for the university to levy fees based on the actual cost of university training. And, as mentioned, the high population growth means increasing number of eligible candidates entering the university (UPE graduates) will place greater demands on capacities. At the international level, some aspects of globalization stand to erode Makerere University's gains. For instance, with a global market, external brain drain makes it more difficult to attract and retain well-trained staff. 87 9. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS Context for tertiary education Three contextual factors have important implications for higher education in Uganda: · Lack of a vision and strategic plan. Linkage between higher education and the government's economic development strategy is not clear. Although the government agrees that higher education in Uganda needs to be expanded in an equitable and high- quality way, little beyond rhetoric has been done. · Informal economy. The predominantly informal nature of the economy means that Uganda needs graduates who can be job creators, actively driving the economy rather than passively waiting for someone else--or even government--to supply them with jobs. · Increasing demand for tertiary education. The rapid increase in tertiary education shows that there is a demand for tertiary education. The increasing population and the expansion of primary and secondary education will result in more secondary graduates seeking opportunities in tertiary institutions. Poor system performance · Low coverage and extreme inequity. Coverage at tertiary level is very low, with a GER in 2000 slightly below 2 percent. Therefore, 98 percent of the target age group does not have access to higher education. In addition, inequity in the Ugandan system is much more acute than at the lower levels of education. Female students make up one-third of total tertiary enrollment, and the majority of tertiary students are from relatively well-to-do families. · There is very little information on internal efficiency and quality. Labor market analysis · Returns are high. The labor market analysis shows that tertiary students are not only more likely to be employed by the formal wage sector, but once employed, the wage premium for every year of tertiary education is at 8 percent. Taking into account the costs of tertiary education, this can be translated into a social return of 13 percent and private return of 24 percent. · Evolving structure of Ugandan economy. Though predominantly an agriculture-based economy, there is every reason to believe that the structure of the economy is evolving to become more industrialized and service-oriented. Data show that, while agriculture grew on average 3.7 percent in the 1990s, its rate of growth fell far behind that of industry, 88 especially the manufacturing and service sectors, which grew at average rates of 12.7 percent, 14.2 percent, and 8.1 percent respectively. Economists expect that these sectors will continue to grow at similar rates. This means that middle-level skills are, or will be, needed urgently by the economy. A focus on science, technology, and engineering will coincide with the general trend of the economy and can bring Uganda more in line with successful international examples of tertiary education in the service of economic development. Insufficient inputs The poor system performance is mainly due to the poor quality inputs or lack of inputs in the following areas: · Curriculum. The higher education curriculum in Uganda is out-of-date and irrelevant to the needs of the current economy. Furthermore, the process of curriculum change takes a long time and does not give an institution enough authority and flexibility to incorporate it into the local context. Further, there is a lack of a flexible credit system which results in complete compartmentalization of the university subsector vis a vis the other tertiary subsector with stigma attached to the non- university tertiary subsector. The compartmentalization is not conducive to the promotion of lifelong learning either. · Science and technology are under-represented in the curriculum. Case studies of Germany, Japan, and Korea have illustrated that science and technology can be coupled with a sound development strategy in other sectors to achieve accelerated economic growth. Yet even within a context of low overall coverage, Ugandan enrollment in science and technology programs is below par in both the OECD and regional contexts. It is very far below the average of the world's fast-growing middle-income countries that have shown the best prospects for growing at a pace that will one day bring them into the stratum of the world's most developed nations. Any plan that seeks to increase Ugandan tertiary education coverage must strongly emphasize science and technology. · Academic staff o Staff appointments, especially in non-university tertiary institutions, are rigid. Public non- university institutions do not control the number of posts, appointment, or promotion of staff. There is no incentive for the institutions to ensure that staff are used with maximum effectiveness. o Public universities enjoy more autonomy. The universities can make their own decisions about staff appointments and promotions. However, the number of posts financed by the government is still determined by MOPS o Lecturer characteristics. The average tertiary lecturer is about forty-one years old, has taught for 9.6 years, and has stayed in the current institution for eight years, indicating a 89 low staff turnover. About 42 percent of them have obtained a master's degree, 35 percent have only a bachelor's degree, and another 13 percent have a diploma (assuming the diploma is in addition to the bachelor's degree). Ten percent of lecturers have obtained a Ph.D. In addition, more than half of them (59 percent) have earned a teaching certificate in addition to their pre-service qualifications. o Teaching load. Student to lecturer ratio varies greatly among institutions and the programs within institutions, and so do average hours of lecturing per week. While most institutions have reasonable ratios of 18­20, a few universities such as Mbarara University, the Uganda Technical Colleges and the Institute of Teacher Education in Kyambogo have very low student to lecturer ratio of 5­8. ITEK lecturers also spent the fewest hours per week lecturing. In general, tertiary lecturers, especially those in non-university institutions, work outside their institutions to earn extra pay. o Lecturer salary. Tertiary lecturers in Uganda earn on average a comfortable annual salary compared to the local living standards, about 11 times the per capita GDP of US$280. However, compared to international standards, this pay scale is low, and brain drain remains a problem. o Tertiary lecturers' income is largely determined by qualification, experience, and the type of institution. Lecturers are paid more when they have higher qualifications. Performance- based bonus systems are still rare, though starting to be introduced at Makerere University. Lecturers in the universities are paid more then those in other tertiary institutions. Lecturers on the government payroll are paid better then those private part- time lecturers in the same institutions. o But lecturers' working conditions are generally poor. There is a lack of basic teaching and learning materials, libraries and labs at the school level. There is no coherent incentive and career structure for lecturers. Professional development. The majority of tertiary institutions do not provide for on-going staff development. Access to donor funds for staff development seem to concentrate on a few elite public universities such as the Makerere University. Other inputs. Universities in Uganda are operating in overcrowded and deteriorating physical facilities, with limited, obsolete, or irrelevant library materials. Apart from a few elite public schools, most students do not have access to personal computers or the Internet. Governance of tertiary education The new Higher Education Act grants more autonomy to all tertiary institutions; however, it has yet to be implemented fully. The current governance structure, unfortunately, can be summarized as one in which: 90 a) Although there is a Higher Education and Other Tertiary Institution Act, the legal framework for tertiary education is not yet comprehensive. Serious gaps in the Act include financing strategies, principles for allocating public funds, incentives for private institutions, accountability and operationalized quality assurance mechanisms. b) The Act did not stipulate clearly the role of the National Council for Higher Education and how its functions should be financed. The capacity of the Council needs to be strengthened to allow it to perform its functions. c) The government agencies (Higher Education Department and the Technical and Vocational Education Department) is weak and they seem to overlap in the management of some tertiary technical institutions. d) Institutional governance differs by the kind of institution but real power usually lies with the heads of the institutions. e) Institutional governance lacks the flexibility for reform because of either too much complexity and autonomy in some public universities, or because of too much direct government controls in other tertiary institutions. f) Financial autonomy is limited especially for tertiary technical and vocational institutions and national teacher colleges. g) Academic freedom is limited especially for non-tertiary institutions in the management of staff and curriculum. h) Quality assurance and accountability mechanisms are lacking. Quality assurance and trends in the overall system The Uganda tertiary system is growing fast, both in the number of institutions and the size of the total enrollment. Its structure is also evolving to become more complex as the system allows for the establishment of more tertiary institutions--public, private, university, non-university, or others. Currently, the system is still dominated by traditional, full-time-attendance universities and teacher training colleges. However, quality assurance mechanisms are still missing at the system level. The newly established Council of Higher Education has to be strengthened to provide such a role. The lack of qualify assurance mechanisms can be primarily attributed to an unbalanced power structure within institutions, and to the confused role of the Higher Education Department, the BTVET, and the National Council for Higher Education. Further, there is also no functioning management information system. 91 The National Council for Higher Education has already taken the initiative to review and develop registration and guidelines for accrediting universities within the current legal framework. The development of such explicit quality assurance mechanisms will contribute to the enforcement of accountability in the system. Financing and cost of higher education Stagnant or declining public financing. Despite the increased enrollment in higher education institutions, the share of the education budget devoted to higher education declined from 24 percent in the early 1990s to only about 11 percent in fiscal year 2000/2001 for public universities. Private funding seems to have grown considerably. In Makerere University, for example, funding from private sources has grown from as little as less than Ush500 million in 1993/94 to over Ush18 billion by 2001/02. Recently, the unit cost study done by the Makerere Institute of Social Research found that of the fifteen institutions (including Makerere University) surveyed, the total amount of private funds generated was Ush22 billion, as compared to public funding of Ush30 billion. This testifies to the success of the dual-track tuition system with respect to generating additional revenues. Makerere University charges fees to about two-thirds of its total enrollment while still claiming that it is providing higher education free to the very fortunate one-third of its students. Mechanisms of disbursing public financing and institutions (especially non-university institutions) lack financial autonomy and are not conducive to equity and effectiveness. For the four public universities which are clearly under the Department of Higher Education, government funds are disbursed in two blocks: one for recurrent and the other for development budget. For recurrent budget, each public institution receives from the Ministry of Education and Sports a block grant or "subvention". The amount of the subvention is calculated based on the number of government students and the "unit cost" which the Ministry thinks is reasonable for that particular institution. Often the government "unit cost" is set very high, more than twice the amount of annual fee paid by a private fee-paying student, as it usually includes a substantial proportion of welfare costs. Johnstone (2003) calls this scheme "an even more aggressive dual track tuition policy, arguably the most striking single example of institutional cost-sharing in SSA". Public universities also receive development budgets from the Ministry, though the development budget fluctuates significantly from year to year and tend to favor Makerere University in general. The other tertiary institutions are administratively under the Department of Business, Technical, and Vocational Education and Training. In FY03, all public technical colleges, colleges of commerce and national health training colleges received recurrent budget support from the Ministry in one block. It is not clear how the subsidy to each institution is calculated, but most likely it is based on the number of public posts in the institution. The tertiary institutions also received development budget. However, the availability and disbursement of development budget to these institutions fluctuates much more than those to the universities. In other words, institutions almost cannot count on the Ministry for development budget support. The 10 National Teacher Colleges fall under the Teacher Education Department. They all receive both recurrent and development budget from the Ministry. For recurrent, wages and non-wages 92 budgets are separated. Again, the amount of wage subsidy is based on the staff pay roll. The amount of recurrent budget is based on other inputs. Comparatively, NTCs have the least financial autonomy. In short, institutions receive much of the public funding based on the inputs at the institution--that is, the staff; it is not related to what they actually produce in terms of outputs--namely, the quality and quantity of graduates. The system provides no incentives for institutions to deliver education more efficiently, and severely limits the flexibility of institutions to respond to their local circumstances or to change. High costs of tertiary education to the government and households. The average private expenditure for tertiary education is high. Private expenditure per university student is US$477. Even the cheapest program of an NTC can cost 50 percent of the average income of one person (GDP per capita of US$280). Poor households may have difficulty paying such costs. Despite the high level of private expenditure, government subsidy per pupil is also very high, especially in the universities. Public expenditure per university student is US$500, as much as the private expenditure. Thus, about half of the financing of tertiary education in Uganda is contributed by the government whereas the other half is contributed by private sector through fees. The average unit cost for universities of US$973 is very close to average academic fees charged, at about US$1,000 per student, indicating that fees are set at appropriate levels given the current levels of inputs. However, the fees charged by technical colleges, colleges of commerce, and NTCs comprise only half of the real unit cost. The public transfer per government student for Makerere University of US$1,538 is set at a level which is 50 percent higher than the average unit cost. Finally, many university students do not pay full academic fees, since the average private expenditure per student is only half the average academic fees charged. This means that many university students are benefiting from government or other agency sponsorship (one third of university enrollment is on government sponsorship). Public financing is inequitable. Most beneficiaries of government sponsorships are from wealthy families. The poor are not even enrolling in the tertiary system. The allocation of government funds to institutions are determined by a mixture of history and political influences, rather than any objective criteria. Public financing is ineffective. From a policy perspective, the funds allocated to support the top-level students in tertiary education are not being used effectively, and do not benefit society at large. Since the government does not stipulate the areas of specialty of the government-sponsored students, it is often up to the individual institutions to decide the student's major. Often, the institutions place government-sponsored students in the least demanded majors to maximize the profit from private-fee- paying students. This is unacceptable--both in the misuse of government funds, and in the misdirection of what are often the country's best students The system provides no incentives for institutions to deliver education more efficiently, and prevents 93 institutions from responding to local circumstances or to change. Finally, there is a lack of data and information at both the system and institution levels. Because of the low coverage, the household survey data do not yield a large enough sample of tertiary students to permit a sophisticated analysis, other than calculating the gross enrollment ratio. The Ministry's annual statistics do have a section on tertiary education. But there is very little information at the institutional level on equity and efficiency, and none of the institutions keep a database on their graduates. This makes it almost impossible to know the labor market outcomes of the graduates. This important task should fall on the newly established Council of Higher Education. One of the main functions of the council should be an institutional database of all tertiary programs. 94 10. BROAD POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS The need for a policy framework and strategic plan for higher education The Ministry must, through a consultative process, develop a policy framework and strategies for the tertiary sector. The framework should have realistic goals, laid out and agreed to by all stakeholders. There also must be targets and indicators in coverage, quality, and efficiency over the next ten years, and the strategic plan should lay out the means for reaching those goals. A strategy for higher education will have the following components. First, the strategy should examine possible lessons about future skill and manpower needs on the basis of the experience of a few other countries at a stage of development to which Uganda reasonably aspires over the period of the strategy. Some of these skills may be subject specific, others will be more generic life skills, such as learning to learn, problem-solving, and working in teams. Second, the HE strategy will need to include the design of mechanisms to collect, analyze and use information from the labor market. For example HE institutions need to collect and analyze data about student destinations and graduate unemployment. There are now no such mechanisms. Third, the strategy will have to ensure that the higher education system operates in ways which are highly adaptable, with the ability to respond quickly once a need for change has been identified. This means that HE will have to provide courses for retraining and updating skills at various points in an individual's working life. Again there is little of this at present. Finally, as the Minister of Higher Education for Mozambique clearly summarized, a higher education strategic plan should also be guided by the following principles (Arlindo Chilundo: The State of Higher Education in Mozambique): o More equitable access o Quality and relevance of higher education o Institutional autonomy with accountability o Partnership between private and public o Efficient use of resources o Cost-sharing between all stakeholders o Financial support to needy students o Democracy, intellectual independence, and academic freedom o Co-operation with other parts of the National Education System The reform program should also be realistic. In a recent evaluation of the tertiary education policy in 95 Ghana, it was found that at the end of implementation, many of the original key policy agreements had been reversed, apparently forgotten, or only partially implemented. The report concluded that the major reasons for "failure" were (a) the breath and complexity of the policy agenda; (b) the government inability to finance and prioritize; (c) structural constraints impeding implementation, including administrative capacity and resource allocation mechanism (Girdwood, 1999. Tertiary Education Policy in Ghana: An Assessment: 1988­1998). Another evaluation by the Operational Evaluation Department of the World Bank on tertiary projects (Berk, 2002) summarized the following lessons learned: · Key constituencies should be consulted early and their support maintained throughout the implementation of tertiary education reforms. · Positive incentives for implementing tertiary education reforms have shown promising results. · It was difficult to address the equitable access by the poor and disadvantaged. · It was difficult to implement cost-sharing schemes that increased tuition fees, reduced subsidies, or tightened up student loans. · Monitoring and evaluation of tertiary education projects need to be strengthened. · A comprehensive approach--grounding lending in a broad reform program--was not a good predictor of success. · The link between project elements and economic growth, poverty reduction, EFA, and MDGs needs to be more explicit in project design. Suggested options for the forthcoming policy framework and strategic plan Based on the findings of this report, we suggest the following policy options in the upcoming Higher Education Policy Framework and Strategies: Creating an enabling environment for higher education · The University and Other Tertiary Institutions Act needs to be reviewed, disseminated, and implemented. The Act should clearly define the role of the National Council of Higher Education, vis à vis the Department of Higher Education and the Department of Business, Technical and Vocational Education and Training. Specially, the Act should specify whether the Council will be merely an advisory body or if it will be empowered to raise and allocate funds. Further, the Act should incorporate financing strategies, principles for the allocation of public funds, provision and incentive for private institutions, and accountability and detailed quality assurance mechanisms to be employed. Clearly defining the roles of the Department of Higher Education and the Department of Business, 96 Technical and Vocational Education and Training. These two departments overlap with each other in the management of non-university technical and vocational institutions. There are two options for consideration. The first option is to have the Department of Higher Education only be responsible for the universities and the Department of Business, Technical and Vocational Education and Training be responsible for all other non-university institutions both secondary and tertiary level. The second option, in line with the Act, is to have the Department of Higher Education (perhaps should be renamed Department of Tertiary Education) be responsible for all tertiary-level institutions including both universities and non-universities and the Department of Business, Technical and Vocational Education be responsible only for secondary-level technical and vocational schools. Both options have their merits and the Government will need to consult widely on this and reach concensus. · The role of the National Council for Higher Education needs to be further defined and its capacity strengthened. Should the Council be merely an advisory body or with some "teeth" and power in raising and expending funds? The council's most important functions will be information dissemination, advising the Ministry on policy issues, and quality assurance services, including registration and accreditation. The government should consider allocating a proportion of total tertiary education budget to the council for these purposes. These funds can then in turn be supplemented by fees charged to the institutions for the services rendered by the Council. · Encourage the collection, analysis, and use of labor market information. Currently there are no mechanisms for the higher education system to collect, analyze, and use information from the labor market. For example, there is very little information on graduate destinations and employment. This seriously limits the ability of the higher education system to adapt itself so that the skills of its graduates will be demanded by the labor market. While the National Council can certainly lead in such effort, institutions should also try to establish its own information system to collect, analyze, and use labor market information for policy purposes. Reforms in public financing of higher education to increase equity, effectiveness, and allow for more institutional autonomy · The government's most effective strategy is the way in which it deploys its own funds. The first option, without increasing the overall funding for tertiary education, is to improve the effectiveness of use of the current public funds allocated to tertiary sector. The state now funds higher education through block grants (based on history and political influences, rather than objective criteria) to public universities and directly paying lecturers and other inputs to other tertiary institutions. This method could be changed to funding outputs and funding key strategic areas. To link public financing of HE closer to national economic development--while granting more financial autonomy to institutions--the government should consider using the following 97 funding mechanisms with objective funding criteria: o Determine an appropriate level of public recurrent subsidy per student for public institutions. The level of subsidy per student could differ by the kind of institution and program of study. However, the level of public subsidy per student should be equal to the fees charged to private students. This can be accomplished mainly by removing the welfare component of the current government unit subsidy. In other words, it is time for the government to consider a single-track tuition policy. It may even be possible that students could attend institutions of their choice and both public and private institutions will benefit from such public capitation grant. o Target government scholarships to critical subjects, such as science and technology, that are proven to stimulate the economy but are clearly under- supplied. o Reserve an amount of development funds and let the public institutions compete to access these funds for capital development if efficiency and quality indicators are achieved. Again, this can also be extended to benefit private institutions in the future. o Establish a research fund to support strategic areas for development. · To improve the equity of public financing, the government needs to target scholarships to poor but worthy students. Increasing the private contribution to higher education financing · Increase cost recovery so that the academic fees charged are closer to real costs; at the same time increase the number of government scholarships and target the scholarships to the real needy, and in the future consider the student loan scheme. · Encourage private partnership. · Encourage the institutions to raise their own funds. Increasing the share of the education budget devoted to tertiary. · Having maximized the utility of existing public resources and mobilized all the available private funds, the government may need to further consider increasing the share of the education budget for universities from the current 11 percent to close to the SSA average of 16 percent. Of course, this will have to be balanced with priorities of the entire education sector and must be a national decision. 98 Strengthening institutional governance and accountability Although governance structure as stipulated in the new Act ensures the participation of key stakeholders in the decision-making of the institutions, implementation has been uneven. As a result, most institutions are still governed by institutional heads, with little involvement of other stakeholders. As the institutions gain more autonomy, especially in the generation and allocation of their own resources, governing bodies must be representative and effective. The new Act also states that each institution must produce an annual report. The government, through the National Council of Higher Education, may want to provide more details on the format and content of these reports. In addition, most tertiary institutions lack a well functioning management information system, which seriously impairs their ability to produce such a report and compromises the accountability of the institutions. Institutions should establish management information systems, at least on the financial side. The development of quality assurance mechanisms and system-wide management information system by the National Council for Higher Education will promote the culture of accountability. Disbursement of government grants could conceivably to linked to the assessment of institutions based on agreed criteria. Academic staff appointment and curriculum The reforms in public financing and increasing the institutional autonomy will have important and positive impacts on staff appointments, curriculum, and academic excellence at the institutional level. When institutions receive one block of public funds based on student enrollment, each institution should use the money in a way so that inputs can be maximized. The institutions will also ensure that programs are relevant and of high quality so that they attract more students paying high fees. For example, once public funding is changed, the institutions will quickly learn that there is an advantage to developing a strategy for recruiting and retaining high quality staff. Increases in efficiency may take the form of doubling the student-staff ratio (to bring it closer to the international norm) and halving the total number of academic staff and doubling their pay. By rewarding staff, there will be less need for them to seek external employment. Even if no changes were made along these lines, there would still be an advantage to developing an appraisal system for academic and non-academic staff, since there now appears to be virtually none. This would dramatically improve the accountability of staff time and hence reduce abuse. It should also help secure a better contribution from staff and provide better inputs into decisions about promotion and staff development. 99 References Appleton, Simon. 2001. Education, incomes and poverty in Uganda in the 1990s. University of Nottingham, UK. Berk, David. 2002. Tertiary Education: Lessons from a Decade of Lending, FY1990­2000. World Bank Operations Evaluation Department. Court, David. 2000. Financing Higher Education in Africa: Makerere, the Quiet Revolution. World Bank. Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education and Sports, 2002. Report of a study tour to the Republic of Ireland. Eisemon, Thomas Owen and Salmi, Jamil. 1993. African Universities and the State: Prospects for reforms in Senegal and Uganda. Higher Education 25: 151­168. Printed in the Netherlands. Eisemon, Thomas Owen. 1993. Higher Education and the State in Uganda. Fine, Jeffrey. 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World Bank. 101 ANNEX I: UGANDAN INSTITUTES OF TERTIARY EDUCATION (Updated in October 2003 by the National Council for Higher Education) Private Institution Public Arts Sci&Tech Male Female Total UNIVERSITIES 1 Makerere University Public 28305 4661 19659 12805 32464 2 Mbarara University of Science and Technology Public 312 648 640 320 960 3 Kyambogo University Public 1579 1163 1815 927 2742 4 Gulu University Public 167 53 220 5 Islamic University Private 1201 264 987 478 1465 6 Uganda Christian University - Mukono Private 895 0 475 420 895 7 Uganda Martyrs University - Nkozi Private 940 117 645 412 1057 8 Nkumba University Private 1204 1276 2480 9 Bugema University Private 764 70 513 321 834 10 Namasagali University Private 442 0 274 168 442 11 Kampala University - Lake view campus Private 289 35 255 69 324 12 Busoga University Private 297 71 240 128 368 13 Ndejje University Private 1445 28 844 629 1473 14 Aga Khan University Private 0 39 1 38 39 15 Kigezi International School of Medicine Private 0 41 29 12 41 16 Kampala International University Unlicenced 1645 1230 2875 17 Central Buganda University Unlicenced 341 10 303 48 351 18 Nakaseke University - Luwero Unlicenced 32 16 35 13 48 19 Bishop Stuart University Unlicenced 200 0 117 83 200 20 Kabale University Unlicenced 38 4 38 4 42 21 Tororo University - Merikit Unlicenced 102 0 57 45 102 22 Kumi University Unlicenced 528 7 356 179 535 23 Fairland University Unlicenced 157 0 127 30 157 24 Teso University Unlicenced 0 0 0 0 0 25 Mbale Elgon University Unlicenced 199 49 157 91 248 26 Christian University of East Africa Unlicenced 149 91 200 40 241 27 Nile University Unlicenced N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A Sub-total 38215 7314 30783 19819 50603 NATIONAL TEACHERS COLLEGES 28 National Teacchers' College Nkozi Public 5286 287 3123 2460 5583 29 National Teachers' college Kaliro Public 3690 0 2446 1244 3690 30 National Teachers' College Ngetta Public 2420 0 1790 630 2420 31 National Teachers' College Nagongera Public 1283 0 855 428 1283 32 National Teachers' College Mubende Public 590 203 547 246 793 33 National Teachers' College Masindi Public 348 0 236 112 348 34 National Teachers' College Kabale Public 1030 854 1366 518 1884 35 National Teachers' College Muni Public 0 0 1750 620 2370 36 National Teachers' College Unyama Public 0 0 368 84 452 37 National Teachers' College Kakoba Private 2341 0 1408 933 2341 Sub-total 16988 1344 13889 7275 21164 UGANDA TECHNICAL COLLEGES 38 Uganda Technical College - Bushenyi Public 197 0 180 17 197 39 Uganda Technical College - Kichwamba Public 0 107 101 6 107 40 Uganda Technical College - Lira Public 0 418 405 13 418 41 Uganda Technical College - masaka Public 0 338 310 28 338 42 Uganda Technical College - Elgon Public 0 340 317 23 340 43 Michelangelo School of Creative Arts Private 98 0 67 31 98 44 Kampala Polytechnic - Mengo Private N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A Sub-total 295 1203 1380 118 1498 102 ANNEX I Continued: Private Institution Public Arts Sci&Tech Male Female Total UGANDA COLLEGES OF COMMERCE 45 Uganda College of Commerce - Soroti Public 452 0 251 201 452 46 Uganda College of Commerce - Aduke Public 856 0 622 234 856 47 Uganda College of Commerce - Kabale Public 713 0 455 258 713 48 Uganda College of Commerce - Tororo Public 616 0 338 278 616 49 Uganda College of Commerce - Pakwach Public N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 50 Maganjo Institute of Career Education Private 92 30 64 58 122 51 Kampala College of Commerce and Administrati Private 49 2 37 14 51 52 Kamengo Business Institute Private 56 0 16 40 56 53 Light bureau of Accountancy College Private 105 32 50 87 137 54 Makerere Business Institute - MBI Private 314 0 111 203 314 55 African College of Commerce Private 345 115 185 275 460 56 Kakoba Institute of Commercial & Technical StudPrivate 95 131 90 136 226 57 Nyamitanga College of Business Studies Private 105 0 4 101 105 Sub-total 3798 310 2223 1885 4108 FORESTRY COLLEGES 58 Nyabyeya Forestry College Public 0 167 132 35 167 Sub-total 0 167 132 35 167 CO-OPERATIVE COLLEGES 59 Uganda Co-operative College - Kigumba Public 0 170 133 37 170 60 Co-operative Collge Tororo Public 0 63 35 28 63 Sub-total 0 233 168 65 233 HOTEL AND TOURISM 61 Uganda Wildlife Training Institute Public 0 69 50 19 69 62 Crested Crate Hotel & Tourism Training Inst.JinjaPublic 302 0 129 173 302 63 Uganda Home Economics Institute Private 17 7 0 24 24 Sub-total 319 76 179 216 395 MANAGEMENT INSTITUTES 64 Uganda management Institute - UMI Public 2394 0 1160 1234 2394 65 Rukungiri Institute of Management Private 10 70 25 55 80 66 Nsamizi Training Institute of Social DevelopmentPrivate 665 0 354 311 665 67 Institute of Management Science and TechnologPrivate 207 47 123 131 254 68 Management and Accountancy Training CompanPrivate 650 0 399 251 650 69 Multitech Management and Accountancy ProgramPrivate 287 114 401 70 International Institute of Education Private 230 0 155 75 230 71 Makerere Institute of Management Private 67 0 31 36 67 72 Uganda Institute of Inform'n Comm'n Tech'gy Private 16 114 101 29 130 73 Internat'l Institute of Business & Media studies Private 101 16 42 75 117 74 Makerere Institute of Social Development Private 135 0 50 85 135 75 Makerere Institute of Administrative ManagemenPrivate N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A Sub-total 4475 247 2727 2396 5123 HEALTH AND MEDICAL 76 Opthalmic Clinical Officers Training School Public 0 11 4 7 11 77 Medical Laboratory Technicians' School Public 0 160 125 35 160 78 School of Hygiene - Mbale Public 0 380 270 110 380 79 School of Clinical Officers Mbale Public 0 89 59 30 89 80 masake registered Comrehensive Nursing SchooPublic 0 95 44 51 95 81 School of Clinical Officers Gulu Public N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 82 Mulago Paramedical Schools Public 0 246 199 47 246 83 School of Clinical Officers - Fort Portal Public 0 696 504 192 696 84 School of Comprehensive Nursing - Soroti Public N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 85 Health Tutors College - Mulago Public 0 20 9 11 20 Sub-total 0 1697 1214 483 1697 103 ANNEX I Continued: Private Institution Public Arts Sci&Tech Male Female Total AGRICULTURAL ANIMAL HUSBANDRY 86 Bukalasa Agricultural College Public 1 221 184 38 222 87 Arapai Agricultural College Public 0 199 158 41 199 88 National College of Agri&Mech.Busitema Public 0 155 147 8 155 Sub-total 1 575 489 87 576 FISHERIES TRAINING INSTITUTES 89 Fisheries Training Institute - Entebbe Public 0 91 71 20 91 Sub-total 0 91 71 20 91 NATIONAL METEROLOGICAL INSTITUTES 90 National Meteorological Training School Public 0 33 29 4 33 Sub-total 0 33 29 4 33 THEOLOGICAL COLLEGES 91 All Nation Theological college Private 40 0 34 6 40 92 West Minister Theological College Private 30 0 30 0 30 93 Clad Tidings Bible College Private 78 0 63 15 78 Sub-total 148 0 127 21 148 GRAND TOTAL 64239 13290 53411 32424 85836 N/A: Not available at the time of survey Source: From National Council for Higher Education 2003 ANNEX II: DETERMINANTS OF TERTIARY ENROLLMENT Bivariate comparisons give us an indication of how tertiary coverage varies by gender and household characteristic. However, they are not able to identify which are the most significant factors, and they therefore cannot explain why coverage is low. For instance, we cannot tell whether tertiary coverage disparities are based on regional or income variations, or on both. Multivariate analysis is needed for this. We used multivariate logistic regression to predict the probability of tertiary enrollment, including both those students currently enrolled and those who had graduated from tertiary education, both within a sub-sample of 18-25 year olds. Our model student includes age and gender, regional characteristics (Central, Eastern, and Western with Northern being the baseline), rural or urban location, wealth (having a mud wall and total expenditure), parental education, and family structural variables (whether the target child is the head of a household or spouse, number of children under 18, age of the youngest child). Our hypothesis is that all of these variables affect the target child's enrollment in a tertiary program. More specifically, young adults are more likely to be enrolled in a tertiary programs if they are older, male, if they are from urban areas, relatively wealthier households, their parents are more educated, and if they themselves are not the head of a household or a spouse already and if the household is smaller in size and the youngest child is older. 104 Table 41: Regression results--Predicting the probability of tertiary enrollment/attainment among 18­25 years olds, HH Survey Variables Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6 (s.e.) B (s.e) B (s.e) B (s.e) B (s.e) B (s.e) Age 0.15 0.15 0.14 0.21 (0.03)*** 0.26 (0.03)*** 0.32 (0.04)*** (0.03)*** (0.03)*** (0.03)*** Gender -0.29 (0.13)* -0.30 (0.13)* -0.36 -0.22 (0.14)~ -0.05 (0.15) 0.24 (0.17) (0.13)** Central 1.2 (0.24)*** 0.97 0.70 (0.25)** 0.53 (0.29)~ 0.48 (0.31) (0.24)*** Eastern 0.59 0.59 (0.26)* 0.54 (0.27)* 0.36 (0.29) 0.35 (0.32) (0.26)* Western 0.63 (0.25)* 0.73 (0.26)** 0.85 (0.27)** 0.74 (0.29)* 0.69 (0.31)* Rural -1.7 (0.13)*** -0.84 (0.15)*** -0.59 (0.17)*** -0.46 (0.19)* Mud wall -0.75 (0.19)*** -0.39~ -0.52 (0.23)* (0.21) Total expenditure 0.66 (0.05)*** 0.59 (0.06)*** 0.52 (0.07)*** (natural log) Father's education 0.05 (0.02)** 0.05 (0.02)* Mother's education 0.07 (0.02)*** 0.06 ().02)** Head or Spouse -1.25 (0.29)*** # children under 18 -0.01 (0.03) Age of the youngest 0.07 (0.02)*** -6.3 -7 -5.74 -15.8 -16.9 -17.4 Constant -2 log likelihood 2250 2175.5 2008.8 1747.7 1351.5 1142.2 Note: * P<=0.05 ** P<=0.01*** P<=0.001 A series of logistic regression models were fit. Table 41 lists the coefficients and standard errors for each of the models and predictors. Model 7 is our final regression model. It shows that variables that are significantly correlated with tertiary enrollment include being older, living in the Western region, living in urban areas, not having a mud wall in the house, higher total household expenditure, higher parental education, not being the head or spouse of the household, and the age of the youngest child in the household being older, controlling for everything else. These results confirm our earlier hypothesis. Significant regional impact was detected in Model 2, which shows that the Central, Western, and Eastern regions have significantly higher tertiary enrollment than does the Northern region. However, as we add the rural/urban indicator (Model 3), the wealth indicators (Model 4), parental education (Model 5), and family structural indicators (Model 6), the regional disparity gradually diminishes and eventually loses its significance, except for the Western region. This indicates to us clearly that the Central and Eastern regional effect on enrollment is not regional per se. Instead, it can be attributed to the fact that, in the Central and Eastern regions, as compared to the North (a smaller proportion of 105 population living in rural areas), the average household has higher household expenditure/income, and the average parents are better educated. In other words, it is the rural location, poverty, and parental education that determine the children's prospect in enrolling in tertiary programs, rather than whether or not they live in the Central and Eastern regions. The Western region, however, still enjoys a slight advantage over the North, even after controlling for these aforementioned household socioeconomic factors. This may be due to the factors that have not been controlled for in the models, such as the supply of tertiary programs in the Western region as compared to the supply in the North, and the educational preferences of parents. Not surprisingly, household expenditure is significantly and positively associated with secondary enrollment. Children from better off households are more likely to be enrolled or to have benefited from tertiary education compared to their poor counterparts. Also, both the father and mother's education are positively associated with tertiary enrollment. The more years of education parents have, the more likely that the target child will enroll or will have enrolled in tertiary programs. From the household structural point of view, the older the target child is, the more likely that he or she is enrolled in or has already attained tertiary education. Being a head or spouse of a household and having a younger sibling significantly lowers the probability of tertiary attendance, perhaps because of the responsibility of taking care of his/her own family and/or the responsibility of taking care of younger siblings. Earlier we also found that women have a lower age-specific tertiary enrollment (Figure 1). The regression results show women of ages 18­25 are still less likely to enroll than men when only a person's age, region, and rural/urban location are controlled for. That is, for any given region, a woman has a lower probability of enrolling or having obtained a tertiary degree than a man of the same age. However, once we take into account the household's wealth status as measured by household expenditure and whether or not the house has a mud wall (a proxy for wealth), the female disadvantage loses its significance at the p=0.05 level. Further, when parental education variables are included, the gender disparity in tertiary enrollment virtually disappears. This indicates that female "disadvantage" in tertiary enrollment/attainment can be largely attributable to the fact that females live in households that, on average, have lower income than males, and whose parents are less educated. This appears a bit puzzling at first. It may be that females usually earn less than males in Uganda (see the later section on returns to education). Further, households headed by females are usually poorer than an average household headed by a man. Therefore the average household expenditure for women always tends to be lower than that for men. In short, the multivariate analysis found that poverty is the single most important factor in determining tertiary enrollment (negatively). Other determinants include living in the Western region, living in rural areas, parental education, whether the person already has his/her own family, and the age of the youngest child in the household. 106 ANNEX III: LIST OF INSTITUTIONS RESPONDING TO THE SURVEYS ID Name of the Tertiary Institution Year of District Region Foundation 1 Arapai Agricultural College 1952 Soroti Eastern 2 Bugema University 1948 Luniero 3 Crested Crane Hotel and Tourism Training Institute 1994 Jinja 4 Fish Training Institute 1968 Wakiso 5 Institute of Teacher Ecucation, Kyambogo Kyambogo 6 Jinja School of Nursing and Midwifery 1954 Jinja Eastern 7 Kampala University 1999 Kampala Central 8 Makerere University 1922 Kampala Central 9 Masaka Comprehensive Nursing School 1992 Masaka South West 10 Mbarara University 1989 Mbarara 11 NTC Kaliro 1985 Kamuli Eastern 12 NTC Kakoba 0 Mbarara 13 NTC Ngetta 1982 Lira Northern 14 NTC Nkozi 1984 Mpigi Central 15 NTC Unyama 1984 Gulu Northern 16 School of Clinical Officers Mbale 17 School of Hygiene 1961 Mbale Eastern 18 Uganda Christian University Mukono 19 Uganda Co-Op College 1954 Masinai Mid-North-Inestern 20 UCC Aduku 1983 Apac Northern 21 UCC Soroti 1983 Soroti Eastern 22 UNISE 1996 Kampala Central 23 Uganda Polytechnic Kyambogo 1928 Kampala Central 24 UTC Elgon Mbale Eastern 25 UTC Masaka 1956 Masaka Buganda 107