The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) on Friday morning released results of the 2019 Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) at the President’s Office in Kampala.
In the statement of release, the UNEB Executive Secretary Daniel Odongo revealed that there was performance improvement in biology, chemistry, Agriculture, geography and Art as compared to the previous years.
Odongo however, revealed that the overall pass levels for science subjects still need great efforts to improve.
“There is still a challenge in overall pass levels for Science subjects especially Physics and Chemistry where nearly half of the candidates have not achieved the minimum Pass 8 level,” Odongo said.
A total of 333,060 candidates sat for the 2019 UCE examinations with 27842 passing in Division One, 58575 in Division Two, 77289 in Division Three, 143,218 in Division Four and 26136 failed completely.
UNEB also registered a total of 410 students with special needs which is quite higher than the 357 who were registered in 2018.
Amongst these, 36 were blind, 87 with low vision, 60 were deaf, 26 dyslexics,78 were physically handicapped and a total of 123 students with other forms of disabilities.
UNEB also registered 48 inmates for UCE with none passing in Division One, nine obtained Division Two, 14 in Division Three, 23 in Division Four and only 2 failed completely.
Meanwhile, the overall performance improved with 92.2 percent passing as compared to 87.2 percent the previous year. The failure rate dropped from 12.8 Percent to 7.8 percent.
While releasing the results, the Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Kataaha Museveni, revealed that, the policy of over assessing learners and rushing through the syllabus by the teachers is one of the factors that continue limiting academic excellence.
“In addition teachers teach at weird hours like 6am and late in the evening and also over evaluate learners with homework and tests which leave them with very little time to revise,” she said.
In regard to this, the minister cautioned teachers to ensure learners get access to all learning materials and avail them with enough time to revise what they have been taught.
Meanwhile, the UNEB have withheld results of 1262 candidates that are suspected of having engaged in examination malpractices. These will have to appear before the UNEB to explain their fate.
