On Friday 3 March 2023 results are the last set of final exams under UNEB’s mandate to be released for a combined total of 1,258, 209 PLE, UCE and UACE candidates of the 2022 academic year.
The state minister for higher education John Muyingo on Friday said all Ugandans should be concerned after a student who scored zero in a 2022 UACE exam asked the “Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) not to waste its time.”
According to the Executive Director UNEB, Mr. Dan. N. Odong a total of 97,889 candidates registered for the examination from 1, 969 Centers compared to 41,190 in 2020. Of the registered candidates, 42% were females while 58% were males.
As was the case in the 2020 examination, female candidates have proportionally (in terms of percentages) performed better than the males at all levels, and have shown a lower failure rate. Even at individual subject levels, they have shown a better performance.
“An analysis of the overall performance in the examination shows that a very high percentage of candidates (99.2%) qualified for the award of the UACE, just as was in 2020.” Dan Odong said
He said performance in Biology has again dropped below the 2020 level where it had risen. Examiners have attributed this to candidates having problems in questions on Genetics, Ecology and applications of biological concepts to the environment, Classification
UNEB chairperson Prof Mary Okwakol said the performance of the candidates has improved especially at the
upper level of candidates obtaining 3 Principal passes. At the other levels, the pass rates are comparable.
In terms of percentages, female candidates performed better than their male cunterparts at the principal level pass (A-E) in Arts (Humanities), Mathematic and Physics. Male candidates were better in Agriculture, Chemistry, Biology, Art and General Paper.
It should be noted that these percentages were lower (except for Physics) in the 2020 examination, and before. In other words, female entries for Mathematics and the Sciences are gradually increasing as seen in Table 8 below.
Female entries for the Sciences and Mathematics have remained lower than that of the males, consistent with the fact that overall female entry is lower than that of the males. Candidature was 29.6% for Mathematics, 6.1%% for Physics, 16.5% for Chemistry; and 15.9%% for Biology.
Better answers were seen in parts of questions that are more direct. Some candidates rely on mnemonics in order to recall facts.
Candidates at lower levels demonstrated adequate to basic mastery of the subject matter Their performance was undermined by misunderstanding of questions, inability to describe, explain interpret offer logical arguments/ illustrations & specific examples to qualify their answers
While releasing the results at the Office of the Prime Minister, the State minister for higher Education Hon. Dr. John Chrysostom Muyingo said absenteeism is still affecting the education system in Uganda and called upon headteachers to find solutions to this big problem. He congratulated candidates upon their success in the 2022 UACE examinations.
Hon. JC Muyingo asked Head teachers to take key interest in students bullying each other to avoid incidents like the one which happened at Kyamate SSS in Mbarara recently.
Parents, candidates and other interested parties can now access results through the Short Message Services (SMS) on their telephone handsets. One is required to know the full Index Number of the candidate, go to the Message menu on the Phone, type UACE, leave space, type full index Number, then send to 6600.
