Beware of Statistics

This headline from April 2016, Special Needs Education budget increased by 34.4% deserves further investigation.

Special needs education is a term used by the Ugandan government to describe the education of children with disabilities (CWDs).

As a proportion of the population there are between 11.5-12.3% (CWDs). How much of the education budget would you expect was allocated to special needs?

These figures are taken from Uganda Budget Information. They are in billions of Shillings.

Financial Year	Total Education Budget	Total Special Needs Budget
2014-15	1,674.50	2.25
2015-16	1,741.00	2.25
2016-17	923.89	2.18

The 2015-16 special needs budget was a paltry 0.12% of the total education budget. In the 2016-17 budgetary period there was a clear decline in spending on special needs education.

Do you think more money should be allocated to special needs education?