Uwezo Uganda seeks to produce independent evidence on the learning levels of children, their distribution and factors associated with them. You can click here to view our Learning Assessment Reports.
1. Policy actors, practitioners and the public have increased knowledge, awareness and understanding of children’s learning outcomes and their distribution.
2. The evidence is used to improve resource allocation and the delivery of education.
This goal has been paramount in our previous work and continues to be necessary, as a large proportion of children are taking much too long to acquire the intended skills and knowledge from primary education while others are not acquiring them at all.
For this purpose, we shall continue conducting strategic citizen-led learning assessments to establish actual basic literacy and numeracy levels of children aged 4-16 in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, but with i) reduced scale that maintains a national and district representation, ii) reduced frequency, e.g., of two-year intervals, rather than annually, iii) coverage of a wider range of outcomes iv) improved methodology and v) attention to the pre-primary as well as the primary age groups. We shall also explore an approach to assessing the literacy and numeracy competences of young adults (14-20) who have left school, in order to understand better the long-term effects of school-based learning.
We believe that by using the principles of simple and citizen-led evidence generation, we can accelerate evidence generation while still achieving the added benefit of well-organised instant feedback. Uwezo data retains traction due to its simplicity and practicality. We shall engage in collaboration, involving communities, as well as public and private actors in the education space, to illustrate our twin problems of low learning outcomes and their inequitable distribution. The collaborative approach will enhance acceptability of the evidence and broaden its chances of being used both for intervention and policy formulation and implementation.
The age range for assessment will be adjusted to include children aged 4-5, so as to provide feedback for early childhood education. It is planned to include this age group in the main assessments from 2020. Assessment data will be analysed and findings published for comparison between districts/counties and across countries, and shared with citizens and policy-makers to trigger community and government action to improve learning outcomes.
In addition to learning assessments that are to be conducted under Goal I, we shall also carry out mini-research studies on various aspects of basic education delivery to unearth variations and advocate for equitable provision. Research under this goal will include, but not be limited to, teacher distribution and motivation, and pupil enrollment and attendance.
