More than 500,000 pupils pass PLE

KAMPALA.

More than half of candidates who sat last year’s Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) are eligible to join post-primary institutions for further education, according to Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb).

The results released yesterday showed that 541,089 candidates, representing 87per cent of the total candidates who sat the examinations, passed in Divisions One, Two, Three and Four compared to 517,889 (86.2 per cent) in the previous year.

“There is better performance in 2016 than 2015, especially at Division One and Two levels,” Mr Daniel Odongo, Uneb executive secretary, said during release of the results yesterday.
He added: “More pupils will qualify to join the post-primary institutions than the previous years.”

Majority of candidates, 251,787, passed in Division Two compared to 63,400 who appeared in Division One, which is the best grade under the Uneb rating.

Although there were more girls who registered for PLE at 51.3per cent than boys at 48.7per cent, the latter performed better than their female counterparts.

The examination centre at Luzira Upper Prison had 77 candidates of which two attained Division One and 32 were in Division Two. Mr Odongo said they were not able to establish how many special needs candidates passed as many other pupils had filled in the code for children with disabilities.

“They think that when we are marking these children with special needs, we are lenient and that is not the case. That is why they probably lied. We will first confirm these,” Mr Odongo said.

According to Uneb data, the number of pupils registering for PLE has increased from 565,663 in 2012 to 640,833 who sat last year at 12,391 centres. There were 488,310 candidates from government-aided schools implementing Universal Primary Education (UPE) in 2016 compared to 152,657 (24 per cent) from non-UPE schools.

Social Studies was the best done subject followed by English language, Science while Mathematics was the worst done.

The nine best performing areas which Uneb categorised as examination districts are: Fort Portal, Entebbe, Ntungamo, Rukungiri, Jinja, Kabale, Masaka, Mbarara, Lira and Masindi municipalities.

The least performing districts were mainly from the eastern region including Serere, Namutumba, Bulambuli, Iganga, Kaliro, Mayuge, Kween, Luuka and Buyende with Kyankwanzi in the central region.

Mr Odongo said candidates’ handwriting was this time round more legible and the candidates tried to answer the questions in full sentences regardless of whether the answers were correct.

Results for 1,886 candidates were withheld pending further investigations by the examinations board. While Mr Odongo said there were no examination leakages, he added that there were new forms of exam malpractices which cropped up, such as teachers assisting the candidates in the examination room.

This report alarmed the Education minister Janet Museveni who wondered at the decadency of teachers’ morals.

“I am alarmed by the number of withheld results. Teachers who should be role models, they are the ones now misleading the pupils. I think it’s because they have not done a good job of teaching so they want children to pass without understanding,” Ms Museveni said at the release of results yesterday.

Pupils who did not seat exams
She was also disappointed at the high number of pupils who registered for the examinations but did not appear to sit the papers. She asked the affected districts with the highest absentee pupils to take action.

Kyankwanzi, Gomba, Kotido, Mityana, Buvuma, Mubende, Ssembabule, Mayuge, Bukomasimbi and Butambala districts were reported to have the highest number of candidates who registered but did not show up to sit the exams.

Ms Museveni promised that her ministry will engage more with parents and the communities to ensure performance of girls in exams improves. She attributed the good examination performance in urban centres to parents’ involvement in their children’s education through feeding them and paying an extra fee to motivate the teachers.

However, she warned administrators in UPE schools that it is against a government policy to charge fees as government is meeting this cost. Nonetheless, she insisted that children do not belong to government and therefore, parents must continue to play their role by providing meals and scholastic materials.

During a question and answer session, Ms Museveni further admitted that although they have increased enrolment, the quality is still lacking. It remains a puzzle how government intends to improve the quality of learning as the budget allocation was reduced despite the many pending challenges.

“There are many challenges and government is working on them. It might take some time. But we will get there. The quality of education is not what we want it to be. We don’t have all the teachers that we want. We have teachers who are not teaching, who absent themselves from school, children who are absent from school and not learning. When they go back to do exams, they do badly. That is why we have results of many children ungraded,” Ms Museveni said.

She added: “As a ministry it’s a major problem we have to fight. I can’t promise you when we will overcome that. It is a problem we have to fight together. If I could, we would get a bigger budget than we are getting now. It is true things have changed. But the population has grown. I believe government would have increased the capitation grant but the budget is spread to cover so much on ground.”

Selection of Senior One students was set for January 24 and 25 at Uganda Manufacturers Association Show Ground in Lugogo, Kampala.

Grades improve

Uganda National Examination Board (Uneb) has registered improved performance in the 2016 Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) results compared to those of 2015.

Releasing the exams results yesterday at the Office of the Prime Minister in Kampala, the Uneb executive secretary, Mr Daniel Odongo, said the overall performance of candidates by grades indicate that the pupils who sat in 2016 performed better than those who took the exams in 2015.

Mr Odongo said 541,089 (87 per cent) of the candidates passed the 2016 PLE exams compared to 517,889 (86.2 per cent) in 2015, implying more pupils qualify to join post-primary institutions this year.

He said 63,400 (10.2 per cent) of the candidates who sat for PLE in 2016 passed in Division One and another 251,787 (40.5 per cent) in Division Two, compared to 51,427 (8.6 per cent) candidates who passed in Division One and 234,537 (39 per cent) in Division Two in 2015.

Meanwhile, 129,252 (20.8 per cent) of the candidates passed in Division Three and another 96,650 (15.5 per cent) in Division Four in 2016, compared to 146,860 (24.0 per cent) in Division Three and 85,973 (14.2 per cent) in Division Four in 2015.

The number of candidates who failed in 2016 was 81,210 (13 per cent) slightly less than the 82,973 (13.8 per cent) who failed in 2015.

“The figures above show better performance in 2016 than in 2015, especially at Division One and Division Two levels,” Mr Odongo said.

In terms of overall performance by subjects, the performance was also better in 2016 compared to 2015 with Social Studies performed best with 90.2 per cent pass followed by English with 86.9 per cent pass and Integrated Science with 85.2 per cent pass in 2016, compared to Social Studies with 87.1 per cent pass, English with 90.9 per cent pass and Science with 82.8 per cent pass in 2015.

But he noted that performance in Mathematics improved at Distinction level but showed a slight decline in the overall performance with 75.1 per cent pass in 2016 and 79.5 per cent pass in 2015. He said candidates exhibited a better layout of their work and their handwriting was legible.