Female candidates have again beaten their male counterparts in the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education exams for the year 2023.
Speaking during the release of the exams on Thursday, UNEB Executive Director, Dan Nokrach Odongo said although female candidates are fewer in number than the male candidates, proportionally, they performed better than their male counterparts did.
“The percentage passes at the upper levels (3P and 2P) are higher, while percentage passes at the lower levels and failure rate among female candidates are lower than for the males. This has been the observed trend in the last three years,” Odongo said.
Odongo however said 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.
He said examiners reported improvement in the quality of candidates’ work, with higher mean scores in many subject areas where performance has been reported to have improved.
“Notable has been Biology, where performance has been rather poor in the past years. The core science subjects continue to show lower than desired principal performance levels,” Odongo said.
He said the factors responsible for this state of affairs have been reported by UNEB during earlier releases of UACE results.
“They include teaching theoretically, with candidates lacking in practical skills to perform experiments, record and interpret their results. Questions based on practical experience posed problems as a result. The Humanities have tended to be better done, save for instances of misunderstanding of questions, inability to understand the differences and import of such key words – the action verbs such as describe, explain, illustrate, evaluate that define the task to be performed in a question. Essays still lack the analytical edge that is expected at the UACE level.”
The UNEB Executive Director said another area that requires urgent attention is ICT, adding that apart from the General Paper, candidates must offer Subsidiary Mathematics or Subsidiary ICT.
“Most schools are very ill-equipped in terms of computers and printers required for the practical examination, and this greatly impacts the acquisition of the skills and quality of work they present during the examination.”
