KAMPALA, UGANDA: The Ugandan National Examinations Board (UNEB) has expressed after one student the 2022 Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UCE) Examinations told examiners “not to waste its time” on him at the expense of other serious students.
Speaking at the release of the UACE results, UNEB Executive Mr Daniel Odongo revealed that, the student, whose identity is undisclosed, wrote on the second page of what should have been a space provided for answers to the examination conducted last year in November.
“One candidate wrote on page 2: Dear Mr examiner, you are still wasting time on me when there are more serious candidates? I’m the stone that the builder refused,” before listing some famous musicians and their songs.
Odongo said another candidate who scored zero in a similar incident “decided to just copy and rewrite questions -several times- in one of the exams” in some of the zero scores recorded by the examinations body.
“We’re wondering why a candidate cannot even score a mark in a subject which they chose. Could this performance indicate an underlying problem,” he added.
The S.6 Results were officially on Friday, March 3 at a function held at the President’s Office in Kampala, presided over by the state minister for higher education John Muyingo.
According to the official results, out of the 96,557 candidates, 67,815 (70.3%) candidates qualified for higher education after obtaining the minimum two principal [passes] levels required for university admission.
“At the minimum two principal level required for university admission, 67815 (70.3%) qualify compared to 69.8% in 2020,” Mr Odongo said.
While speaking at the same function, Minister Muyingo said Ugandans should be worried and concerned at the same time after such instances of students scoring zero marks for subject combinations they chose themselves.
“When a candidate scores zero at this level, there are many questions that cross our mind. What does this mean to us as teachers? Is it the food they eat? Is it the teachers who failed this candidate or someone else?” Mr Muyingo wondered.
The minister, however, partially blamed teacher absenteeism for the poor performance recorded in some of the 2022 UACE exams. saying; “The results could have been much better if all our teachers were rendering services expected of them. It is time for us to crack down on this habit.”
The minister further urged the S.6 vacists to consider enrolling for practical hands-on training in vocational and medical schools as this is a shortcut to easily acquiring direct skills to make one competitive in the labour market.
“Get interested in what is offered in our medical and technical training institutions,” Mr Muyingo emphasized at the Office of the Prime Minister in Kampala.
Friday’s results are the last set of final exams -under Uneb’s mandate- to be released for a combined total of 1,258, 209 PLE, UCE and UACE candidates of the 2022 academic year.
Unlike UCE and PLE Results where boys beat girls, the trend has been consistent at A’Level where girls have beaten their male counterparts at A’level for the last four consecutive years.
Admission to university for freshers of the incoming academic year is expected to happen latest August this year for most public universities.
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