Why SST remains best done subject as Maths eludes pupils

Hapiness. Students of St Catherine Primary celebrate after excelling in the Primary Leaving Examinations. PHOTO BY KELVIN ATUHAIRE

Kampala. Social Studies (SST) and Religious Education once again became the best done subjects in the Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) results released on Thursday.
According to Uganda National Examinations board (Uneb) rankings of the performance by subject, 95.5 per cent of the candidates passed SST, improving from 94.6 per cent in the previous year.
Integrated Science also maintained the position of being the second best done subject with 92.3 per cent pass, improving from 2017 performance of 88.3 per cent.
Much as English and Mathematics retained the third and fourth positions, Uneb reported an improvement in performance at distinction level.
Mr Dan Odongo, the Uneb executive secretary, said: “Performance in Mathematics improved at the distinction level but showed a decline at the credit and overall pass level.”
Overall, performance in Mathematics declined from 83.8 per cent in 2017 to 77.0 per cent this year whereas English improved from 85.6 per cent to 87.7 per cent.
Uneb, however, reported that examiners while marking the exams, found that the candidates had improved in their handwriting and expressing themselves while answering questions.
Meanwhile, the number of candidates passing each of the four subjects increased with the overall enrollment. Out of the 659,633 candidates that wrote the exams, 657,601 passed Science, 657,589 passed SST, 657,565 passed Mathematics while those who passed English were 651,590.
Mr Odongo said the reason the candidates continue to perform poorly in English and Mathematics is failure to answer questions that require knowledge in problem solving.
“In both English and Mathematics, performance was poor in questions where candidates were required to apply knowledge in problem solving situations or express themselves freely,” Mr Odongo said.
The Uneb chairperson, Prof Mary Okwakol, said there are candidates who are still scoring zero in an examination paper at PLE despite attempting to answer the questions.