Male candidates have significantly performed better than their female counterparts in the just-released 2023 Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) examination results.
Speaking at the release of the results on Thursday at State House in Nakasero, UNEB executive Director Dan N. Odongo said performance in 2023 examination is significantly better than that of 2022.
“Overall, male candidates performed better than females at all the higher grades. In all the large entry subjects, males still showed better performance, with differences very significant in History, Geography, the sciences and Commerce” Odongo said noting that males outshone at all levels despite registering lesser candidates though females only performed better than males in English Language.
For large entry subjects, the noticeable fact is that candidates performed badly in Physics and Chemistry but the released results show a significant improvement in English language, Religious education, Mathematics and Biology.
“Performance in sciences continues to be a concern with less than 20 percent of the candidates obtaining credit pass levels in Physics and Chemistry, and 40 percent or more unable to pass. It is worth noting however that there is an upturn in performance in Biology which has been recording a steady decline.” Dan Odongo stated.
Examiners according to UNEB have attributed the low achievement levels in science subjects to a number of factors, main among which are inadequate teaching, manifesting in the inability of the learners to master the basic scientific concepts; lack of practical teaching, manifesting in the learners inability to manipulate science apparatus and carry out the procedures prescribed in the examination papers and interpret any readings or observations that could have been made.
UNEB noted that there are schools that had been reported to have no science teachers which exacerbate the problem.
In 2023, at least 364,469 candidates turned up for the UCE examination compared to 349,459 candidates in 2022. The number of male candidates registered was 180,471 (49.5percent) and that of females registered was 183,998 (50.5percent), 3527 more females than male candidates.
The failure rate according to the released results also dropped by 0.5percent with 329,939 (99.5percent) of learners who presented themselves for the 2023 examinations progressing to the next level.
In a speech, Education minister Hon Janet Kataha stressed need to interrogate the factors behind the improved performance with an intention to consolidate the trend in coming years.