How students performed in optional UCE subjects

The Uganda Certificate of Education results released February 15 indicate that students who sat for the optional subjects excelled, with overall 15 percent of them scoring distinctions, while 50 percent scored credits, according to the Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb).

At least 17 percent scored passes and 12 percent failed the examinations, with a further 1 percent failing to show up for the examinations.

An analysis by subjects indicates that German was the best-performed subject, with 57 percent scoring distinctions, 42 percent scoring credits and only one percent scored passes with no failures.

French came second with 34 percent with students passing with distinctions, 50 percent obtained credits and 12, percent obtained passes while 3 percent failed with one percent failing to show up.

Kiswahili and Arabic tied in third place with 33 percent of students who sat in both subjects scoring distinctions while Literature in English came closely in fourth place where 31 percent of the students also obtained distinctions.

Islamic religious education, foods and nutrition and Christian religious education completed the list of subjects where more than 20 percent of the candidates passed with distinctions in the respective subjects. German and Foods and Nutrition registered no failures while Technical Drawing on the other hand did not register distinctions

Of the total of 813,325 students who registered for optional subjects, 15 percent scored distinction 1 and 55 percent managed to get credits 3 and 6 respectively, 17 percent passed with, a pass  7 and 8 and 12 percent failed.

Regional variations in subject choices

Senior Uneb examiner Eric Okot told Monitor that there has been a pattern where students from a particular region opt for particular subjects.

For example, he said, more students in Western Uganda take Kiswahili and Agriculture, while in the central region, more learners are offering Luganda and Religious education as their optional subject because they have an opportunity of access to the teachers among others.

He said technical drawing as a subject among the optional subjects is being taken by fewer students because the schools that teach it are few in terms of numbers.

 “Some schools are treating subjects like technical drawing as expensive and therefore it needs to demystify such an assumption that the subject is expensive to handle”, Mr Okot noted.

 “More sensitization, and also they should increase in the human resource of the teachers teaching these operational subjects to provide equal opportunity for every student to offer a subject of his or her own choice”, Mr Okot stressed.

He said the students are opting to make choices for the optional subjects depending on what the school offers most, without knowing that subjects such as technical drawing are a good option because most of the schools treat them as expensive despite value it bear.

How Uneb selected compulsory and optional subjects.

Based on the overall government education policy, ministry of education and sports made a list of all subjects taught in Ugandan schools and made some subjects compulsory while students were given options to choose additional subjects from senior three onwards.

Out of this, seven subjects including Mathematics, Biology, Physics, and Chemistry, English, Geography and History were made compulsory while the rest remained optional.

At ordinary level, up to 20 subjects are taught, but students are required to select up to 10 subjects for examinations.

The subjects taught in ordinary level included English Language, Mathematics, Geography, History, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, religious education, Entrepreneurship, Kiswahili, ICT, Nutrition and Food technology, technology and design, Performing Arts, Fine Art, Physical education Agriculture, and Literature in English, Foreign language, local Language.

Overall, the majority of the students that registered for optional subjects passed with credit 3 to 6, that is 55%, and 17% scored Pass 7 to 8.                                                                                                          

 Also 15% of the students scored Distinctions, 12% failed with F9, while 1% never sat the exams.