Most improved, declined schools in UCE

Statistics from Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) indicate that 63 per cent of the schools performed better in the 2020 Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) examinations, while 37 per cent either declined or maintained performance, when compared to 2019 performance.

The Uneb executive director, Mr Dan Odongo, last Friday, said: “There was better performance overall [in 2020 UCE examination], compared to 2019, with 311,233 (4,309) candidates passing compared to 306,924 who passed the examination in 2019.”

Daily Monitor analysis of results for 2,891 schools where candidates sat the examinations indicate that of the 1,833 schools which improved in performance, only three registered more than 50 per cent improvement. 
The three schools, two in central Uganda and one in western Uganda, are Central College, Mityana Annex where there was 90

per cent improvement; St Kaggwa High School in Bushenyi (55 per cent improvement) and St Andrew Kaggwa Gombe High School in Kampala (53 per cent improvement).

Central College Mityana had 9.4 per cent of their students in Division One in the 2019 UCE examinations, but in 2020, all their students passed in Division One.

For St Kaggwa, in 2019, they had 16.4 per cent in Division One while in 2020, there was a great leap to 72.1 per cent of learners in the same grade. St Andrew in the 2019 UCE examinations had 24.3 per cent of their learners in Division One but in 2020, up to 77.8 per cent were in the same grade.

Of the1,830 schools where improvement was below 50 per cent, only 28 schools showed improvement in the range of 30 to 48.6 per cent, while 301 schools showed improvement in the range of 10 to 29 per cent.

St Mary’s Seminary in Kabarole was the fourth school, which registered significant improvement in performance (48.6 per cent); Light for All High School, Nsangi in Wakiso (47.1 per cent) and Ushindi SS in Arua (44.1 per cent).

Mr Odongo said there was overall improvement in performance in subjects except in Geography, Chemistry and Biology.
“Worth noting with concern is the overall pass levels for science subjects where nearly half of the candidates have not achieved the minimum Pass 8 level. Chemistry remains the worst done subject,” he said.

Surprisingly, in the analysis, up to 1,324 schools, representing 72 per cent of those that registered, showed a slight improvement in performance ranging from 1 to 9.9 per cent.

The rest of the schools, 178, which fall under schools with improvement, the level was almost negligible at 0.1 to 0.9 per cent. Some of these include Tarbuk SS in Masaka, Ngai SS in Oyam and Merryland Model S.S in Kasese. This means although Mr Odongo said there was a general improvement in performance, in most schools, it was slight.

Of the 1,058 schools, 382 maintained their 2019 performance while 676 declined by 1 to 45 per cent, according to our analysis.

Highfield High School of East Africa, which is in Mukono, had the biggest decline in performance, where 1.2 per cent of their students passed in Division One compared to 46.7 per cent in 2019. The other schools which significantly declined are Lincon High School, Kabembe in Mukono, St Mary’s College Lugazi in Buikwe and Merryland High School in Wakiso.

The improvement and decline in performance were spread across the country, according to our preliminary analysis. Mr Odongo explained that poor performance in schools was due to language deficiency and low capacity to handle high order questions that require candidates to apply knowledge in problem-solving situations.

“Candidates do better in questions which require mainly knowledge and understanding. High order questions that require candidates to apply knowledge in problem-solving situations, draw inferences or make predictions from observations or set of data are not done well. This has been persistent over the years,” he said.