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Buliisa parents, teachers trade blame over poor UCE results
An aerial photo showing a section of Buliisa District. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- The district education officer, Mr Tyson Kasagaki, said he had no information about UCE results, and referred the reporter to secondary school head teachers.
A section of parents and other stakeholders in Buliisa District have blamed the poor performance of candidates in the recently released 2020 Uganda Certificate of Education results on transfer of teachers and lack of school inspection.
Mr Robert Agaba, a parent, said the education department makes unnecessary transfers of teachers in government schools every term, which hinders stability of teaching.
“Teachers are transferred when they have not given enough knowledge to learners,” Mr Agaba said.
He also blamed the performance on lack of proper supervision by school inspectors, saying it has caused laxity among the teachers.
“If we want to improve our performance, the concerned authorities need to improve monitoring and supervision of our schools and engage the school management to address the issue of poor performance,” Mr Agaba said.
Some of the schools that registered students in first grade are Divine SS (five students) , Ngwedo Seed (one) , St Francis Biiso (two), Butiaba Seed (four), Uganda Martyrs Comprehensive (four), Biiso War Memorial (three) and Mukitale Development Foundation (one).
In the last three years, the district has registered poor results. For example, in 2019, the district had 12 students in Division One, 53 in Division Two, 292 in Division Three, while 480 failed.
Mr Seremosi Rwahwire, another parent, attributed the performance to lack of role models to motivate learners.
He added that some parents take their children to other schools outside the district when they perform well.
“When their students excel in Primary Seven, they enroll them to secondary schools outside the district, while those who are admitted within are the ones who performed poorly,” Mr Rwahirwe said.
Mr Blasio Mugasa, a retired teacher, attributed the problem to lack of professionalism among teachers.
“Teachers have failed to love the profession. They also lack dedication to transform a child into what they want them to be in future,” he said.
Mr Mugasa advised teachers to create an enabling environment that will attract students to learning.
However, Mr Samuel B Muponda, the head teacher of Ngwedo Seed Secondary School, attributed the poor results to absenteeism and lack of essential facilities such as laboratories.
At Ngwedo Seed School, out of 18 students who sat for Uneb, only one student got first grade, six were in second grade, seven in third and one got married before doing exams.
The district education officer, Mr Tyson Kasagaki, said he had no information about UCE results, and referred the reporter to secondary school head teachers.
During the release of the results last week, the Uneb executive director, Mr Dan Odongo, said science subjects were poorly done with nearly half of the candidates failing to achieve the minimum Pass 8 grade level for each academic subject taught O-Level.
Head teachers accused parents of fuelling school dropout rates.
Mr Julius Mugisa, the head teacher of Butiaba Seed Secondary School, said out of 130 students that were enroled at his school in 2017, only 37 sat final exams and four students scored first grade.
“In 2017, our school admitted 130 in Senior One and before the lockdown, we had remained with 57 students and by the time we registered them to sit for Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb), we had 37 students of which seven students came from other schools,” he said.
