Namilyango, Uganda Martyrs Namugongo and St Mary’s SS Kitende lead the pack, but sciences were worst done

Despite the government’s efforts to promote sciences in schools, the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) 2016 examination results released yesterday show that physics, biology, chemistry, and mathematics were the worst done subjects.

“The percentage pass levels for all science subjects remain low, with almost 55 per cent of the candidates unable to exhibit the minimum required competency to be graded,” said Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) executive secretary Dan Odongo.

For physics in particular, the failure rate was appalling as only 40 per cent of all candidates managed to get at least a pass. The rest failed the subject.

“And the story is not different from the previous year [2015],” Odongo said.

Such performance paints a picture that only pales in comparison with where the country wants to be in future. President Museveni has used every opportunity to tout sciences and often publicly described arts subjects as “useless.”

Indeed, Vision 2040, which is supposed to anchor the country’s growth in the next three decades, identifies science subjects as the main focus of growth. It says: “Developed and fast developing countries have used science, technology, engineering and Innovation (STEI) to meet their healthcare needs, develop industries and overcome economic challenges.”

MAIN DRIVER

It adds: “Uganda will re-orient itself to make innovation the main driver of economic growth and the key pillar of competitiveness in trade.”

But the 2016 results, which mirror the trend of the last five years, don’t augur well for this dream. First, it may not be entirely the fault of the students. Odongo said it was evident that some students might have held an apparatus only twice in their four years of O-level.

“Some students were holding apparatus for the second time; the first one being in mocks, and during the final exams,” he said, referring to the dire lack of facilities to teach sciences in most schools.

“The lower achievers found difficulties with questions requiring explanations, description of experimental procedure, use of chemical symbols and formulae…and dealing with tasks that require practical practice. Little wonder then, that 75 per cent of suspected cases of examination fraud were in practical physics alone,” Odongo said.

While this is not a new story, it comes at a time when government has vowed to prioritise sciences to drive the country’s growth agenda. Janet Museveni, the minister of education, said she was most disappointed at the failures in sciences.

“Despite the huge investments government has made in sciences, they are yet to translate into expected results,” Ms Museveni said.

She added that using a loan from the World Bank, government has built 290 science laboratories, given out 4,791 science kits, 5,000 chemical kits, 3,000 textbooks and 6,000 lockers to facilitate science teaching. She said it could be that most schools are not allowing students to use these facilities, hence the failures. 

Science subjects were made compulsory for all students as one way of promoting science, technology and innovation in the country.

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

On the whole, students performed poorly in 2016 compared to 2015. At least 316,624 students sat for UCE last year compared to 313,171 in 2015. Only 23,489 (7.5%) managed to get a first grade while in 2015, at least 25,750 (8.5%) passed in division one.

This year, at least 41,632 (13.2%) students failed completely compared to just 29,593 (9.7%) in 2015. The main cause of the failures, Uneb said, was simply that students could not understand English, the official language of instruction.

Mathematics was among the most failed subjects. Rules at Uneb are that when a student gets a 9 (failure) in either English or Mathematics, they are pushed to the next grade.

For English, in particular, Odongo said, “it is a real challenge”.

“Difficulties were reported in the use of correct grammar, spellings, tenses, and punctuations when writing compositions,” he said.
“Teachers are still making candidates cram passages from story books or what they call ‘model compositions.”

Yet the most looked-at measure of a particular school’s performance is the number of students that managed to pass all the graded eight subjects with distinction one.

Overall, at least 69 candidates got 8 in 8 countrywide. The results show that it is mainly the elite schools in Kampala and other better-off districts that managed this.

This speaks to the observed trend of growing inequality in the country, where even at PLE it was the elite schools – where the children of the rich go – that passed with flying marks.

For instance, Namilyango College (Mukono) had the highest number of candidates (12) who got eight distinctions in eight subjects. It was followed by Uganda Martyrs Namugongo in Wakiso (11), and then Nabisunsa Girls (Kampala) with four candidates.

However, some periphery districts now have schools that can lift their performance. Buikwe district, one of the poorest districts, had one student from St Mary’s College Lugazi score eight in eight – the highest grade one can attain.

MORE FIRST GRADES

When it comes to the total number of first grades obtained, the list changes. St Mary’s SS Kitende leads the pack with 430 candidates passing in division one. Uganda Martyrs SS, Namugongo (260), King’s College Budo (241), and Seeta High School with 230 candidates.

Like it has been in the past five years, boys continue to perform better than girls at this level. But the trend worth noting is that more girls are now finishing their O-level cycle.

Prof Mary Okwakol, the Uneb chairperson, said “gender parity at this level has almost been achieved with a ratio of girls to boys who sat the examination at 49.1 to 50.9 respectively”.

This shows, perhaps, that government is winning the war against early marriages that hitherto stopped girls from finishing their education cycle.

FREE SECONDARY

Another keenly-watched indicator is how private schools performed vis-à-vis government schools running the Universal Secondary Education programme. USE schools performed poorly with at least 16.6% (25,392) failures, while just 16,045 (9.9%) in private schools failed.

USE schools also had the highest number of candidates (3,434) who skipped exams. Only 1,495 candidates from private schools were absent. USE schools tend to lack key facilities to enhance their performances.

“This disparity in performance is, perhaps, not unexpected,” Odongo said.