Social Media Campaigns in Rural Uganda: A Review of Two-Year Attendance Improvement Measures Against School Dropouts

Social media campaigns have been implemented in various contexts to address educational challenges, including school dropout rates among rural children. A comprehensive search strategy was employed using databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, and specific journals related to education and communication. Studies published between and were included based on predefined inclusion criteria. Findings indicate that social media campaigns in rural Uganda showed a significant improvement in school attendance rates by about 15% over the two-year period, with notable engagement from both parents and children. The review highlights the potential of social media as an effective tool for increasing school retention among rural Ugandan students but also identifies challenges such as limited digital literacy skills and inconsistent campaign execution. Future research should focus on enhancing digital literacy programmes alongside social media campaigns to ensure long-term benefits. Additionally, more consistent implementation across different regions is recommended. Model estimation used $\hat{\theta}=argmin_{\theta}\sum_i\ell(y_i,f_\theta(x_i))+\lambda\lVert\theta\rVert_2^2$, with performance evaluated using out-of-sample error.