Accounting for UPE implementation: The contribution of school management committees

Abstract

The political promise of free primary education but also for the wider reasons of closing the education gap of Access, Quality and Equity. The introduction of UPE coincided with the abolition of Parents Teachers’ Associations (PTAs) which were associated with the collection of fees from especially parents to supplement government grants to schools. The Education Act 2008 introduced School Management Committees (SMCs) to be in charge of public primary schools on behalf of government. Using a multiple case study approach involving four SMCs representing the four regions of Uganda, this article investigated the role of SMCs in Universal Primary Education. The selection of the four that SMCs were involved in the planning, budgeting, mobilization of the community and monitoring of the school activities. What was apparent, though, was that such activities were implemented differently across the SMCs due to differences in technical and the three out of four SMCs. As a way of conclusion, SMCs are very supportive of UPE, but government needs to train and regulate them.