160 students from 60 schools get A-Level maximum points
Left to right: Stephen Kirungi, who scored 19 points, Chrispus Wabyona, who got 19 points, their head teacher Joab Tasobya, Joseph Busobozi, who scored 20 points and Abel Oboga with 18 points, celebrate the good performance. They are former students of Albert Secondary School in Hoima District. MONITOR PHOTO
Kampala- At least 60 secondary schools from across the country had students scoring 20 points, the maximum that a candidate can garner in the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) exams.
The majority of 160 students, who scored maximum points, were from schools in Kampala, Wakiso and Mukono districts.
Namilyango College in Mukono District has 13 of its students scoring 20 points, followed by King’s College Budo with 12 students, while St Mary’s Secondary School, Kitende and Mengo SS each contributed 10 candidates.
Uganda Martyrs and Ntare School each had seven candidates in this category.
In total, Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) examined 98,524 students last year in the UACE exams and reported that 98.6 per cent of them qualified for the certificate.
Of these, Mr Dan Odongo, the Uneb executive secretary, said on Thursday that 63,123 students scored at least two principal passes, earning themselves a ticket for university admission.
Mr Filbert Baguma, the Uganda National Teachers’ Union (Unatu) general secretary, yesterday attributed the good performance in these schools to parents’ involvement where they are able to financially support the schools.
He challenged government to increase capitation grants to schools implementing Universal Secondary Education (USE) from the current Shs41,000 per student per term to at least Shs800,000 for these schools to favourably compete with others.
“These are schools with libraries and laboratories. The parents pay not less than Shs800,000 per term with others paying Shs2 million a term. This enables the schools to recruit more teachers. The challenge is that we are comparing such schools with those which charge Shs50,000. These are not comparable. The government should allow parents contribute because what they give as capitation grant can’t cater for all the needs in schools,” Mr Baguma told Saturday Monitor.
While releasing the results, Mr Odongo noted that most rural schools lack teachers, libraries and laboratories.
He also commended students from some traditional government schools and private schools who were able to exhibit high order skills in certain questions but worried that teachers’ methods of teaching, especially in the science subjects, was lacking.
Dr John Chrysostom Muyingo, the State Minister for Higher Education, said government was ready to recruit 3,800 teachers and retool those who were already in-service.
