The Uganda National Examination Board (UNEB) has released the 2020 Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) exam results.
Releasing the results on Friday at State House Nakasero, the UNEB Executive Secretary Dan Odongo said a total of 98,392 candidates registered for the 2020 UACE examination from 1,952 Centres.
“At least 41.1 percent females did the exams. The female candidature is much lower than the males. The numbers of candidates have been fluctuating over the years, but more and more students are registering are staying in school and undertaking the exams,” Odongo said.
He also revealed that the female candidates outshined their male counterparts in the exams.
He however noted that the number of students who failed Economics, Entrepreneurship Education and Agriculture was high. Odongo noted that in the examinations, candidates showed lack of knowledge especially in economics where students were too green on in the vital concepts of Taxation and the Stock market.
“There is evidence that many teachers are either also deficient in these areas, or do not teach the topics due to inadequate syllabus coverage. And in general English literature to understand questions is still lacking. That is candidates who scored grades A and B demonstrated high levels of knowledge of the subject matter and were able to handle tasks that required high order skills. Their work in the practical examination papers also showed the ability to manipulate apparatus, ability to record observations correctly reflecting the accuracy level of the instruments used, and ability to manipulate the data generated correctly,” he said.
Odongo also noted that although last year’s performance in sciences has been fair, there is also evidence of teaching theoretically with very little practical experience given to the candidates.
“As a result, candidates who performed poorly showed an inability to follow instructions and procedures during the practical examinations, failure to accurately record data or even make meaning of any of the data recorded.”
Odongo further disclosed that most of the candidates had difficulty in writing correct chemical symbols and balanced equations in Chemistry.
“Whereas the skill of dissection is essential in Biology, many candidates did not carry out this task on the specimens provided as required by the questions but proceeded to make drawings crammed from textbooks. This is evidence that teachers in the schools where this happened did not expose the candidates to this very essential skill that will be required in future biological science-based courses.”
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