Results of 79 UACE candidates withheld as girls outperform boys

The Uganda National Examination Board (UNEB) says the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) examination results of 79 candidates from 24 centres have been withheld over malpractice.
This was revealed by the board chairperson, Prof Mary Okwakol while releasing the reSults in Kampala on Wednesday.

Ms Okwakol said allowing malpractice in exams will lead to low quality of the country's human resource.
“Examination malpractice leads to poor doctors, poor judicial officers and engineers. This should be a matter of everyone's concern,” she said.
She however, noted that cases of malpractice at UACE level were quite low as compared to previous years.

Speaking at the same event, the board’s executive secretary, Mr Daniel Odongo said the female candidates have this year made a millstone after they outperformed their male counterparts at all levels in the 2017 Uganda advanced certificate of education examinations.
Mr Odongo noted that unlike in PLE and UCE, female candidates have performed better than boys in UACE because the failure rate among female candidates for 2017 is lower at 0.7% than for males at 1.5%.

Commenting on the withheld results, Mr Odongo said that the results have been withheld due to the external assistance candidates obtained, substitution and smuggling of unauthorised materials into the examination room, among others.

He said subsidiary mathematics, biology and economics were the most affected subjects.

He however, noted that the above students from 24 centers will be given a fair hearing by the board before the final verdict.