Education minister Janet Museveni has blamed schools for the poor performance in the 2016 UCE examinations arguing that most schools have sacrificed academic excellence at the altar of commercial gain, with many asking students to pay money for numerous tests and Mock exams instead of teaching.
She has also faulted teachers for not assessing students and instead pushing parents to pay extra money to get test papers from several examiners, calling on head teachers to desist from such tendencies.
The selection for Senior Five Entry will be conducted on 9th and 10th February, 2016 at the UMA show grounds Lugogo.
She has called upon MPs, RDCs, DISOs, head teachers to make use of information to devise strategies for improvement.
She says Political leaders should also mobilize their communities for better performance.
Meanwhile, she has decried the persistent absenteeism of candidates which she says works against all efforts to improve the quality of education in the country.
Science subjects registered the worst performance in last year’s Uganda Certificate of Education Examinations, with Physics recording the highest failure rate.
This is according to the Executive Secretary of the Uganda National Examinations Board Daniel Nokrach who has been giving an overview of the performance at the release of the results at the Office of the Prime Minister.
He says performance of non-USE candidates was better than their USE counterparts.
The failure rate for 2016 is at 13.2% compared to 9.2% for 2015, he attributes this to poor performance in Maths, English, and sciences. More than 60% of candidates failed Physics.
Meanwhile, UNEB chairperson, Dr Mary Okwakol says there was a general decline in last year’s performance.
Dr Okwakol says there was no examination leakage reported, but fraud was detected in the form of third party support and copying from smuggled material.
Some of the Schools whose results were withheld include Queen SSS Wakiso, Good Hope SS Bundibugyo, Iganga High School Iganga, JaKayz SS Kabowa in Kampala district, Lutembe boarding school wakiso, Hillside SS Kamuli, Muhanga SS Kamwenge among others
323,276 candidates registered, for the exams but out of this 316,624 appeared for exams, an increase of 3.2 per cent compared to 2015.
