The study investigates the influence of a father and mother’s education on the academic
achievement of their child. The investigation is based on data sourced from the 2009 Southern
African Consortium for Monitoring Education Quality survey comprising 5,148 records of sixth
grade students enrolled in Ugandan primary schools. Students’ percentage scores in the health
sciences, reading, and numeracy tests were adopted as a measure of academic achievement. The
analysis was carried out using summary statistics and a multiple linear regression clustered by six
geographical regions in Uganda: central, eastern, western, northern, southwestern, and
northeastern. In addition to father and mothers’ education, students’ test scores in the various
disciplines were analyzed by the characteristics of age, sex, rural-urban residence, grade
repetition status (any grade), and length of pre-primary education. The results showed that the
level of a father’s education required to predict whether the child will achieve better scores in all
disciplines was primary education. However, a mother required secondary and post-secondary
education to enable the child to obtain better scores in reading and numeracy, respectively. Much
of the previous literature has suggested that children born to educated parents have higher
academic achievement; the results of this study support this finding but also reveal a difference in
the levels of a father and mother’s education required to predict their child’s achievement of
better scores in formal education.