UPE schools trail again in PLE performance

The schools under Universal Primary Education (UPE) have continued to lag behind in performance, the government said yesterday while releasing Primary Leaving Examination (PLE) results. 

Speaking at the event held at State House Entebbe to release the results, the Uganda National Examination Board (Uneb) executive secretary, Mr Dan Odongo, blamed the poor performance in UPE schools on parents.

Of the 749,761candidates who registered for PLE this year, 236,720 (31.6 per cent) were non UPE, while the 513,085 (68.4 per cent) were from UPE schools, according to Uneb statistics. 

In the breakdown, 26,127 (5.2 per cent) of the candidates in UPE schools passed in Division 1, against 55,737 (23.9 per cent) of total candidates in non UPE schools. 

And of the total number of candidates who failed the examination, majority were in UPE schools. 
Up to 64,487 (12 per cent) of the total number of candidates in UPE schools failed, while 10,391 (4.5 per cent) of the total number of candidates in non UPE schools failed.

But overall, 87.1 per cent of learners who sat PLE in UPE schools passed, while 95.5 per cent of learners who sat the examination in non UPE schools also passed in divisions 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Mr Odongo said: “The [PLE] results are similar to what we have seen before. The non-UPE children, though they are much fewer, performed better than the UPE children.”

“Most non UPE schools are in urban areas but UPE schools are [mostly] in rural areas… There is a higher level of parental involvement in children’s learning in urban areas than it is in rural areas,” he said. 

Prof Anthony Mugagga, the director of Makerere University Institute of Education Research, blamed President Museveni, accusing him of encouraging parents to abandon their responsibility to educate their children.

He said the promise by President Museveni to make education free is unrealistic and not practical given the limited funds government sends to schools for the learners.

“The challenge the UPE [programme] faces is that it is based on false promises that made some parents give up on supporting their children in school, even providing them food,” Prof Mugagga said.

The 2014 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) report titled ‘The use and usefulness of school grants; Lessons from Uganda,’ indicated that capitation grants given by government for UPE are insufficient.

“The grant is insufficient to cover school budgets. Its disbursement also suffers from many delays,” the report read.
Ms Rhoda Nalunkuuma, the head teacher of Kyampagi Primary School (a UPE school) in Rakai District, told this reporter earlier that they are struggling to improve the performance of the school due to limited funding.

“In first term, we received a capitation grant of Shs2.5m and we have 450 pupils. Shs2.5m for 450 pupils means each pupil is getting approximately Shs5,500 per term,” she said. 

Given that 50 per cent of this capitation grant is spent on scholastic materials and 30 per cent on extracurricular activities, this translated into Shs2m. 

This means the school administration remains with only Shs500,000 to maintain the school, prepare exams, pay headmaster’s transport and contingency occurrences for three months of the term.