Universal Primary Education and Academic Performance of Pupils in Selected Primary Schools of Masulita Sub-County Wakisodistrict, Uganda

ABSTRACT This study established the relationship between Universal primary education and academic performances of pupils’ in Masulita Sub County Wakiso district Uganda. Specifically, the study wanted to establish (i) the relationship between teaching/learning resources (ii) teacher pupil ratio (ii) pupils’ attendance and academic performance of pupils in Masulita Sub County Wakiso district. The study was descriptive and co-relational in nature based on quantitative approach involving 52 teachers and 225 pupils’ selected from five schools in the Sub County using stratified random sampling Primary data on school resources, teacher pupil ratio and pupils attendance were collected using self administered questionnaires and analyzed by summary statistics (e~g. Means and standard deviations) and Pearson Linear Co-efficient. Data on pupils’ performance were obtained from the selected school with permission of school administrators and summarized using the same statistics. The study found significant relationship between teaching/learning resources; teacher pupil ratio and pupils’ academic performance while the relationship between pupils’ attendance and their academic performance was found to be insignificant. From these findings appropriate conclusions and recommendations were made. The recommendations form the study were; (i) Government and other relevant stakeholder should ensure that there is provision of the basic teaching/learning resources to enable teachers be well equipped to enhance their delivery in order to bring about improvement in performance of pupils (ii) There is a need to hire teacher basing on the number of pupils in the school and to determine the maximum pupil per teacher beyond which pupils can be divided into streams to bring about closeness between the teacher and the pupil and to enable teacher to cater for individual attention (iii) There should be a joint effort by teachers’ parent and other stake holders in encouraging pupils to always attend classes as missing classes mean missing to get what will constitute the assessment and in turn this brings poor performance, and (iv) School feeding programmes need to be established in all UPE schools in Masulita Sub County to attract pupils stay at school throughout the day since being hungry makes some pupils leave school before time to go and get what to eat from homes.