LIVE : UNEB releases 2024 UCE results for new, old curriculum

The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has today released the results from the 2024 Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) examinations, a significant shift from the old curriculum to the new competency-based curriculum.

The event, presided over by the Minister for Education and Sports, First Lady Janet Museveni is underway at State House Lodge, Nakasero and broadcast live on major radio and television stations in the country.

In his remarks at the 2024 UCE results release, Prof. Celestino Obua, the Board Chairperson of UNEB highlighted the unique nature of last year’s examinations as the new curriculum allowed teachers to gain experience through interaction with the teachers, the learners and some parents.

“We can say with complete confidence that this is a good curriculum. The products of the curriculum have more confidence, can communicate better, have developed the skills to do research and projects in various areas and have learnt how to learn,” Prof Obua stated.

“Just like the public had wondered how these learners would transit to the next level, we as a Board had also silently agonised about the fate of the learners who would transition to UACE to a curriculum that was still rooted in the same old format that the learners had no longer interacted with.”

Prof Obua expressed gratitude to Mama Janet for the necessary guidance to the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) and emphasized that “substantial changes have been made to the UACE curriculum with which these learners will now interact when they transition to that level in a few weeks from now.”

He also stated that the reporting of the achievement levels has changed from the stanine system of 1 to 9 (Distinctions, Credits, Pass and Fail) used in the previous content-based curriculum to letter grades, A, B, C, D and E.

“The Transcript (used to be Result Slip) and certificate will also change in content presentation,” Obua stated, adding that in arriving at the decision to adopt the letter grades format, the Board considered several options with various amounts of content.

“The Board’s decision was guided by the following considerations: (i) the report/transcript/certificate issued must be simple for all stakeholders to easily understand. (ii) the descriptors – explanations of the meaning of the grades – should be positive on what the holder of the certificate can do.”

A total of 10,141 candidates from 1,028 centres registered for the examination of the old/transitional curriculum of whom 4,369 (43.1%) were males and 5,373 (52.9%) were females. 813 (8.0%) are beneficiaries of the USE programme and 8,929 (88.o %) are Non-USE. Of the total number registered, 9,742 (96.1%) sat for the examination (4,369 males and 5,373 females). 399 did not avail themselves of the opportunity yet again.

On the new curriculum and hurdles faced, UNEB Executive Director, Mr Dan Odongo said; “The new curriculum, being skills-based, requires that science labs and workshops are well-equipped to give the learners enough chance to create new knowledge through self-learning.”

Unfortunately, Odongo noted that many rural and private schools lack these and are also short of science teachers. “Along the way, we also discovered that some schools appeared to be resisting the change to the new curriculum.”

He added that teachers were stuck to teaching the old curriculum with the hope that the Government would retract the new curriculum, given the challenges that were evident at the start of the implementation of the curriculum.

“They were surprised when the Board released the sample examination papers. These challenges impacted greatly the candidates’ achievement in Sciences. Despite these challenges, the new competency-based curriculum assessment has been successful,” Mr Odongo explained.

He said; “A total of 359,417 candidates were registered as the first cohort for the examination. Of these, 177,133 (49-3%) were males, while 182,284 (50.7%) were females. 136,785 (38.1%) were beneficiaries of the USE programme, and 222,632 (61.9%) were non-USE.”

A total of 357,120 (99.4%) candidates were present for the examination. Only 2,297 (0.6%) were absent. The rate of absenteeism continues to drop, and this is a good sign.

This page is being updated with results as they come in!