By Patrick Jaramogi
Kampala, Uganda: The 2018 Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) results have been released by the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB), with girls outshining boys.
Releasing the results at the Prime Minister’s office in Kampala, the State Minister for Higher Education, Dr.Chrysostom Muyingo said most students still failed to answer logical questions.
While representing Education and Sports Minister Janet Kataha Museveni, Muyingo decried the continued examination malpractice, a vice that he said government was committed to address, but asked for multi sector approach to it.
Last year, UNEB registered a total of 99,672 students UACE. Out of these 53,359 were males while 41,313 were female who sat across the country’s 2,217 centers.
“It has still come out that the rampant use of pamphlets in schools is still a challenge and this affects the students. We still encourage teaching and change in teaching methods to benefit the students,” said Muyingo.
He decried the poor performance in science subjects and noted that government was committed to addressing this by among others provision of science text books in secondary schools as we as the recruitment of over 2,000 science teachers. “It’s quite sad that learners in Biology cram instead of understanding,” said Muyingo.
“Government will support UNEB in all means possible to fight this vice. The war against examination malpractice is a war that must be fought by all of us. It is like the war on corruption. Schools that continue will be closed, head teachers who condone this practice will be punished,” he said. Muyingo encouraged candidates to take up technical and vocational courses at Diploma level.
The UNEB Executive secretary, Mr. Daniel Odong, said the number of candidates who registered for 2018 examinations declined compared to the 102,007 candidates who sat for UACE exams in 2017. He hailed the Ministry of Education and Finance for supporting UNEB with funds in time to enable them implement the timely marking and release of exams.
Odong said results of 91 candidates who sat last year’s exams had been withheld from 21 centers.
UNEB also withdrawn the examination center number U2804 allocated to Seesa High School in Kakungube Kasanda district for gross violation of examination regulations for both UCE and UACE.
“In many centers, performance continued to show inadequate syllabus coverage. The quality of work showed poor preparation for the candidate for the exams,” said Odong. The results indicated that girls beat boys in Arts, Physics and Agriculture, while boys led in Mathematics, Chemistry, Biology and General paper.
Meanwhile UNEB has cautioned school heads against charging fees for UNEB registration. The Executive secretary said the fees for registration have not changed. “The UNEB registration fees stay the same. Those registering for PLE will pay shs34,000, while UCE will pay shs164,000 and UACE (S6) will pay shs186,000. These figure should not be distorted,” he warned.
