The failures of public providers under the free primary education policy has triggered a mushrooming of private schools in Uganda. In addition to the expensive private schools for elites in urban areas, there has been an increasing role played by private schools in rural areas, which may cater for the needs of children from poor households. By utilizing national representative panel datasets, this presentation provides fresh empirical evidence on the determinants of school choice between public school and private school in rural Uganda. The possibility of utilizing resources from the private sector without deteriorating access and maintaining the overall framework of the free primary education policy is discussed in the presentation.

Mr. Sakaue is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies (GSICS), Kobe University, Japan. He is also a Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). He was a visiting student scholar at the Institute for International Studies in Education (IISE), University of Pittsburgh, in 2013.