Decline in 2012 performance

Education Minister Jessica Alupo says selection for S.5 will be conducted between February 14-15. Senior Five students will report for first term on March 4. The chairperson Uneb, Mr Fagil Mandy and Education Minister Jessica Alupo release the UCE results at Statistics House in Kampala yesterday. PHOTO BY ISAAC KASAMANI  

By AL-MAHDI SSENKABIRWA

The Uganda National Examinations Board yesterday released the 2012 Uganda Certificate of Education results, indicating a slight decline in both performance and the number of candidates who registered and sat for the exams compared to 2011.

Overall, performance dropped from 2.4 per cent to 2.2 per cent. Out of the 262,987 candidates who sat for the exams, 18,826 passed in Division One ( 7.2 per cent) as compared to 22,630 ( 8.5 per cent) in 2011.

Uneb says 428,513 candidates are eligible for the examination board’s certificate, meaning they can move on to the next stage of education. This category also qualifies for the government’s free A-Level scheme introduced last year. However, the number of those who qualify for certificate reduced by 25,707 compared to 254,220 who received them in 2011.

A total of 13,363 failed the exams and were graded in Division Nine. Like it was in the Primary Leaving Examinations a few weeks ago, performance of candidates under the government’s free education scheme remained unknown despite Uneb saying 101,300 of them sat for the exams.

Journalists demand to have the figures were ignored by both Ministry of Education and Uneb officials. Uneb Secretary Matthew Bukenya said although the overall performance had dropped, it was not indicating “a significant change”. “Overall performance in 2012 has dropped, compared to that of 2011, although not significantly,” he said.

Girls performed well in English and Literature in English while boys excelled in sciences as it has been over the last three years. However, English was the worst done subject overall, followed by Literature in English, Christian Education, Islamic Religious Education Agriculture and Physics.

Although there was a slight improvement in History, Geography, Mathematics, Chemistry and Biology, more than 50 per cent of the candidates were unable to demonstrate the basic competencies in most science subjects. For instance, only 1.83 per cent scored a distinction in Chemistry, according to the results.

Education Minister Jessica Alupo, who released the exams, said the drop in performance was a cause for worry, adding that a solution must be sought to avoid a repeat this year.
“ Uneb has consistently highlighted areas where schools must pay attention to in the various subject areas,” she said, “the executive secretary’s statement still echoes these problems, meaning that schools are not heeding or using the information to improve the teaching /learning process,” she said.

assenkabirwa@ug.nationmedia.com
Accessed on Friday 8thFeb. 2013 from: http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/Education/Decline-in-2012-performance/-/688336/1688106/-/9vd6rs/-/index.html 

TEACHERS AND TUTORS DEVELOP MORE NON CONVETIONAL INNOVATIVE METHODS OF TEACHING HELD ON 4TH -22ND FEBRUARY 2013

 In house workshops are reminders to awaken the might have forgotten minds. In a way they re-kindle issues.

The 2013 theme of the workshops rotate on teaching sounds. This came up during the 2012 workshops where it was discovered that among the four language skills i.e. listening, speaking, reading, and writing,  reading is the worst done reason being that the method of a whole word approach( instead of letters / sound) does more harm than good to learners.

It is believed that reading and articulating becomes so easy when one starts with sounds/letters. In the light of this, computers for schools has decided to put emphasis on sounds/letters not of course forgetting the other three skills.

 CCT Jacinta Kabagenyi a champion in phonology field handled the first batch of the in house workshops in most schools. With her were the retired teacher Bwango Pius, Mr.Kajura Nelson, Robina Nyakana and the program officer for the project.

The subject matter for the in house workshops has been mainly on the introduction of sounds and the importance of using them to teach reading.

So far most of the fifteen schools have been reached and 75 teachers have been targeted. In house trainings will continue throughout the year. After this phase, other resourceful persons will follow with detailed material on phonology.

Both the Heads of schools and teachers were more than happy to see the problem of reading beginning to get solved.

                                 MEMBERS POSE FOR A GROUP PHOTO AFTER AN IN HOUSE WORKSHOP

                                 KASIISI PRIMARY SCHOOL