African Educational Research Journal - Vol. 8(2) - Full Length Research Paper - Investigating the relationship between school attendance and academic performance in universal primary education: The case of Uganda

Oct 15, 2026

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This study investigated the relationship between school attendance and academic performance in Universal Primary Education (UPE) schools in Rubanda district of Uganda. Using data from a sample of 104 participants, the study found that UPE schools perform poorer in internal examinations but better in national examinations, with regular attendees differing from chronic absentees. School attendance shows a positive association with academic performance (R = 0.365), though it explains only 11.8% of variation.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages9

Reading Time23 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

School attendance as a determinant of academic performance

Universal Primary Education (UPE) and attendance challenges

Study objectives

Theoretical framework

African Educational Research Journal Vol. 8(2), pp. 152-160, April 2020 DOI: 10. 30918/AERJ.82.20.017 ISSN: 2354-2160 Full Length Research Paper Investigating the relationship between school attendance and academic performance in universal primary education: The case of Uganda Denis Sekiwu*, Frederick Ssempala and Naluwemba Frances Department of Foundations of Education, Faculty of Education, Kabale University, P.O. Box 317 Kabale, Uganda. Accepted 19 March, 2020 | ABSTRACT
This study investigated the relationship between school attendance and academic performance in UPE schools in Rubanda district of Uganda. Using data from a sample of 104 participants, the researchers established that UPE schools perform poorer in internal examinations but better in national examinations. The regular school attendees perform differently from the chronic absentees. There is also a positive relationship between school attendance and academic performance (R = 0.365), although school attendance explains only 11.8% variations in academic performance while 88.2% is explained by other factors affecting academic performance. School administrators should identify other factors that are likely to influence pupils' academic performance apart from attendance, as well as strengthening communityschool interaction programmes to help improve attendance in UPE schools.
Keywords: Academic performance, school attendance, UPE schools, social productivity. | | --- | | *Corresponding author. Email: [dsekiwu@kab.ac. ug](dsekiwu@kab.ac. ug). | INTRODUCTION School attendance is the daily or regular learner participation in school activities (Gottfried, 2010) . Through regular school attendance, learners get to access consistent educational support for their academic attainment (Oghuvbu, 2010) . When learners attain academically, Honneth (1995) observes that they recognize their identities and intersubjective awareness of their social and individual capabilities. However, Epstein and Sheldon (2002) assert that regular school attendance is a commitment to classroom time and activities right from enrolment to finalization of a full academic programme. School attendance is an important factor that influences the academic performance of pupils. Roby (2004) School Attendance Hypothesis indicates that regular school attendance could help pupils to achieve academic excellence. Similarly, Fleming (2008) advises that pupils need regular school attendance for them to be highly engaged with classroom activities. Black et al. (2014) argue that school attendance is reinforced through continuous teacher guidance and parental/guardian encouragement. However, it is legitimate for schoolteachers to maintain a daily pupil attendance record (Bagaya, 2019) . The attendance record is regularly reviewed by the head-teacher and the district inspector of schools as a quality assurance measure (Nsubuga, 2008) . In order to increase educational quality and equity, the government of Uganda introduced the Universal Primary Education (UPE) programme in 1996. Consequently, UPE has boosted pupil enrolment from 3.1 million in 1996 to 2.7 million in 1997; then from 7.4 million in 2004 to 8.2 million in 2009 and 10.5 million in 2017. Despite these steady increases in enrolments, school attendance remains low, highlighting the incongruity between school enrolment and attendance. For example, Twaweza Monitoring Series (2018) study shows that out of 67% children who enrolled in primary one, only 13% completed primary six. School enrolment alone cannot guarantee educational quality and equity, especially where school attendance is low. With low school attendance, learners can hardly catch up with class work particularly where teachers do not have adequate time to engage absentee-learners in academic activity (Bagaya, 2019) . Chronic absentee-pupils may lack time to concentrate on their studies because such pupils often get involved in out-of-school programmes (Gottfried, 200

FAQs

What is the main purpose of the study?

To examine the relationship between school attendance and academic performance in UPE schools in Rubanda district of Uganda, alongside assessing and comparing performance across schools and between attendees and absentees.

What did the study find about attendance and academic performance?

School attendance has a positive relationship with academic performance (R = 0.365), but attendance explains only 11.8% of variations, meaning most differences are driven by other factors.

How did students in UPE schools perform in internal versus national examinations?

UPE schools performed poorer in internal examinations but better in national examinations, as reported by the study’s sample-based findings.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Stanford