Effect of school-based initiatives on academic performance in science education in Uganda: SESEMAT Programme(2010-2016)

Abstract

The main Study aim was to estimate the causal effect of the school-based initiatives on students’ academic performance in science education using the results of the Uganda Certificate of Education for the period from 2010 to 2016. The research design applied included the combination of propensity score matching and difference-in-differences estimation, pre-test, post-test, and control group design. The study selected a sample of 579 schools with teachers exposed to the initiatives (treated) and 1269 with unexposed teachers (untreated). The study revealed that the main contextual factors that are likely to contribute to a positive and higher marginal effect of school-based initiatives include schools of single-sex versus mixed-sex students, urban versus rural schools, and government versus private schools. Meanwhile, the factors that contributed less differential effect of intervention are mainly: schools under universal secondary education grant versus non-universal secondary education and schedule for in-service training in term II and term III versus term I. The results revealed that there was an overall positive (11.81) academic performance index improvement and a significant treatment effect of the school-based initiatives on students' academic performance. Therefore, the single-sex schools, government schools, schools in an urban setting, attending the in-service training in term one or rolling up expansion regarding their counterparts of mixed schools, privately owned, in a rural setting, appeared to have a positive marginal effect. The effect was more pronounced in urban and government schools than the rest of other factors. The study further recommends that the Government of Uganda should direct all secondary schools to ensure that all teachers comply and implement the school-based initiatives: lesson study, planning and lesson observation of teaching and learning.