UNEB Confirms that A Level students are very poor in local languages

 Candidates who took Ugandan local languages in the recent A-Level exams have underperformed, according to the latest results released today by First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Museveni.

Dan Odongo, the Executive Director of the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB), stated that candidates who took these languages struggled with cultural practices, interpreting proverbs, and using them in sentences. They also lacked the vocabulary necessary for effective translations and compositions.

The local languages offered at A-Level include Luganda, Acholi, Lango, Lugbara, Runyakore/Rukiga, Ateso, Lusoga, Dhopadhola, Runyoro/Rutooro, and Lumasaaba, though UNEB did not provide further details on the results.

Odongo also pointed out a decline in performance in the Sciences and some arts subjects, citing significant drops in areas like Entrepreneurship Education, Christian Religious Education, Geography, Mathematics, Agriculture, and Chemistry. He highlighted that insufficient practical experience continues to affect performance, with many candidates struggling to describe experimental procedures or interpret setups from diagrams, particularly in physics. Additionally, some candidates provided results from experiments without explaining how they were obtained, and there was difficulty connecting science concepts to real-life situations.

In the Humanities, Odongo noted ongoing issues with poor interpretation of questions, resulting from a lack of understanding of key concepts. He used history as an example, mentioning that limited critical thinking skills hindered candidates’ ability to analyze historical views. Candidates who took history exams also exhibited insufficient familiarity with the National Constitution, which is a key reference in the subject.

However, he also acknowledged improvements in candidate performance in Economics, Literature in English, Physics, and Biology.

During the announcement at State House Nakasero, UNEB shared the results with First Lady Janet Museveni. Of the 141,996 candidates who registered for the 2024 UACE exams, 65.5% met the criteria for university admission with at least two principal passes, compared to 73.8% in 2023. This suggests that an additional 11,457 university placements are needed.Odongo also mentioned a gradual increase in the number of candidates choosing Mathematics and the Sciences, with Mathematics seeing the largest growth. However, the overall number of candidates for these subjects remains below half of the total candidates, likely due to low pass rates in the Sciences at the UCE level, which affects the number of students continuing to UACE in these subjects.In terms of gender, female candidates outperformed their male counterparts in all humanities, Physics, and General Paper subjects. Despite being fewer in number, females had higher pass rates at the upper levels and a lower failure rate. Although fewer females entered the Sciences and Mathematics compared to males, their participation is gradually increasing.Regarding the new competency-based curriculum, UNEB Chairperson Prof. Celestino Obua acknowledged concerns about the grading system for the UCE exams. Some stakeholders had misinterpreted “Result 1” as “Grade 1,” creating confusion. Prof. Obua clarified that the Ministry of Education and Sports was under pressure to assign numerical values to grades A-E, but he stated that this would not be done as it contradicts the intention of the new curriculum. UNEB plans to engage with key stakeholders to clarify the grading system.