Education in Pakwach District is coordinated by the District Local Government particularly for Primary education. Secondary and Tertiary education is handled by the Central Government. Under the District Local Government, the District Education Committee is charged with the responsibility of providing education, coordination of services and policy initiation in Pakwach. The District Education Office is the overall implementor of education policies in the district at all levels and the inspectorate section is responsible for standard setting, maintaining, monitoring and advisory roles.

Vision:-a healthy,well educated and transformed people of pakwach district from traditional to a modern fishing and farming with a high quality of life.

Mission: is to serve the community of Pakwach through coordinated delivery of service provision of quality,accessible,equitable and relevant education focusing on both national and local priorities to promote sustainable development of the district.

Goal:is to improve on the quality of life of the people of Pakwach district by providing quality education for all.

Educational Institutions

Pre-primary School Education

Pre-primary School Education offers early childhood care and education for children between 3-5 years. In Pakwach district, there are currently 49 operational Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres which are exclusively owned and managed by the community and private sector. The enrolment in pre-primary schools increased by 63% from 2124 pupils in 2017 to 3467 pupils in 2018. However, considering the number of children aged 3-5 years in Pakwach, projected at 33,401 in 2017, many children still remain excluded from the pre-primary school enrolment number. Most of the pre-primary schools are located in urban and peri-urban areas of Pakwach.

 

Primary School Ownership in Pakwach District

 

There are 110 primary schools in the district. 63 of these are owned by the government and 47 are privately ownned or owned by the community.

The distribution of primary schools in Pakwach 

 

Sub County	Government owned	Community/Privately owned
Panyimur	11	16
Pakwach	9	6
Pakwach Town Council	11	9
Alwi	11	2
Panyango	11	9
Wadelai	10	5
Total	63	47

 

Secondary Schools in Pakwach District

 

There are about 11 secondary schools in the district. Only 5 of the 11 are government owned and are distributed among all sub counties except Alwi and Wadelai. Pakwach town council has the highest number of privately owned secondary schools standing at 4 schools. Wadelai and Alwi only have one secondary school each.

 

Secondary school distribution in Pakwach District

 

District	Secondary school
	Government	Private/Communty	Total
Pakwach	5	6	11

 

 

 

Higher institutions of learning

 

The district boasts of only one institution of higher learning called Uganda College of Commerce Pakwach situated in the heart of the district.

 

Enrolment levels

 

Enrolment levels in Primary school

 

In the year 2018, the enrolment of students in primary school was at 48603 pupils as shown in Table 5.4. From the table, more boys than girls enrol for primary education in Pakwach District. The percentage of boys’ enrolment is at 51.8% while that of girls is at 48.

Enrolment in Primary schools in Pakwach district in 2018

 

LowerLocal Gov’t			Alwi	Wadelai	Panyimur	Panyango	Pakwach Town Council	Pakwach S/C	Total
P.1		M	818	1373	1709	1626	853	971	7350
		F	830	1248	1606	1474	934	1087	7179
P.2		M	526	845	974	922	826	532	4625
		F	500	747	957	892	567	526	4189
P.3		M	542	742	905	870	677	555	4291
		F	513	693	775	889	767	590	4227
P.4		M	398	661	680	785	911	441	3876
		F	405	562	589	741	649	434	3380
P.5		M	301	491	492	583	452	302	2621
		F	277	443	398	493	494	238	2343
P.6		M	252	321	307	431	409	242	1962
		F	124	219	191	330	258	170	1292
P.7		M	113	193	143	255	188	137	1029
		F	41	72	105	222	147	78	665
TOTAL		M	2950	4639	5329	5294	3748	3210	25170
		F	2942	3973	4670	4971	3762	3115	23433

 

 

Secondary school enrolment

 

Enrolment in secondary schools in 2017

 

CLASS	MALE	FEMALE	TOTAL
S.1	1,732	943	1,522
S.2	1,522	761	2,283
S.3	1,483	627	1,975
S.4	1,154	486	1,648
S.5	203	52	255
S.6	238	61	299
TOTAL	5,859	2,948	8,807

 

 

 

    Staffing levels

 

Staffing levels in the primary schools in the district is presented in Table 5.6. The Table shows the number of teachers in each sub-county. It can be observed from the Table that, female teachers (120) representing 21.7% are far less than their male counterpart (432) that is 78.3% of the population of primary teachers.

 

 Number of Primary School teachers in each sub county.

 

Sub County		Number of teachers
	Male	Female	Total
Alwi	63	13	76
Pakwach	44	27	71
Pakwach TC	42	25	67
Panyango	124	21	145
Panyimur	90	18	108
Wadelai	69	16	85
Total	432	120	552

 

 

 

    Efficiency ratios

 

All of the ratios do not meet the National level standard and require more attention. In most schools P1 and P2 pupils are the most affected. For instance, P.1 and P.2 learners in most schools sit on mats or bear classroom floors during study time.

 

        Efficiency Ratios

 

Indicator	Ratio
	Lower primary	Upper primary
Teacher pupil ratio	1:129	1:58
Classroom pupil ratio	1:129	1:82
Desk pupils ratio	1:8	1:4
Latrine stance pupil ratio	1:135

 

Source: District Education Office, Pakwach- Mr.Ongeyowun Nasser Hassan