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UCE: Most improved districts named
Jubilation. Prisoners lift their colleague Ezra Turyahebwa while celebrating UCE results on Thursday. Turyahebwa was the oldest candidate in last year’s Senior Four class at Luzira Prison-based school. PHOTO BY EPHRAIM KASOZI
What you need to know:
- Excelled. Arua was the most improved district by doubling their first grades from 113 in 2017 to 227 in 2018
Even though authorities at Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) reported a drop in the performance in the 2018 Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) results compared to 2017, some districts have pulled a surprise performance in the number of candidates at Division One level.
According to the results released on Thursday, the number of candidates who passed in Division One dropped by 210 from 26,908 in 2017 to 26,698 in 2018.
Also, the total number of failures increased from 27,955 in 2017 to 42,334 in 2018.
Arua was the most improved district by doubling their first grades from 113 in 2017 to 227 in 2018, followed by Mbale that rose from 175 to 297.
Other districts which had a significant rise in first grades are Kyegegwa from two to 47, Pallisa from 18 to 57, Nebbi from 19 to 57, Mitooma from 96 to 118, Kasese from 75 to 135, Amuru from five to 39 and Serere from 15 to 48.
Meanwhile, some of the districts that saw the number of first grades drop are Apac from 30 to three, Kamuli from 188 to 149, Rukungiri from 466 to 182, Rakai from 395 to 259, Ntungamo from 494 to 382, and Kayunga from 276 to 188.
Among the districts that have always dominated the first grades table, Luweero District registered a rise from 822 the previous year to 1,019 last year, followed by Mukono with a 170 increment from 2,467 to 2,637.
However, Saturday Monitor couldn’t independently establish what exactly the most improved districts did differently.
Wakiso, Kampala, Bushenyi and Masaka saw slight drop in their number of candidates passing in first grade. Asked about what causes the variation in performance for particular districts comparing the previous and current year, the Uneb secretary, Mr Dan Odongo said, only the schools can tell.
“Uneb can not answer that offhand but may be the districts and the schools can tell what they did better to increase their first grades or what might have gone wrong to register a drop in those grades” Mr Odongo said.
