The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has released the 2022 Uganda Certificate of Education (0-level) results, indicating that males performed better than females.
According to the results released on Thursday, 09 February 2023, 345,695 candidates (173,761 males and 171,934 females) appeared for the examination compared to 330,592 candidates who appeared for the examination in 2020.
Of the males, 15.5% came in Division One and 23% were in Division Two compared to 11.5% females in Grade One and 21% in Division Two.
25.5% of the boys came in Division Three while 25.8% of females came in the same grade. 31.4% of boys were in Division 4 compared to 37% girls. 4.1% boys failed (Division 9) compared to 4.7% girls.
Absenteeism of candidates, which had continued to drop over the last four years, rose by 0.3%.
Speaking at the release, UNEB Executive Director Dan Odongo said there was an improvement in performance in the large entry subjects except in Christian Religious Education, Biology and Commerce.
Mathematics showed better performance at the Distinction level, but declined overall, he said.
“Worth noting is that, performance in Physics and Chemistry has improved, although the overall pass levels are still low. Over 40% of the candidates have not passed the two subjects,” he said.
Odongo revealed that female candidates performed better than males in English Language.
In Chemistry, the male candidates show better performance in the higher grades but, overall, a higher percentage of females obtained at least a pass.
“We note that this year, examiners reported better quality work in English Language. However, in composition writing, where candidates are expected to exhibit creativity and originality, learners in some schools are still cramming passages from textbooks,” he said.
“In the Comprehension passage, candidates found difficulty in extracting appropriate information to use to correctly answer the questions based on the passage. There are also weaknesses in using the correct grammar in sentence construction. The essential skill of extracting main ideas from a passage and writing out a coherent summary presents a major challenge to most candidates,” he added.
A total of 1,035 results will be withheld in accordance with Section 5 (2) (b) of the UNEB Act No 1 of 2021.
A total of 721 Special Needs Education (SNE) candidates (389 males, 332 females) registered for the 2022 UCE examination compared to 519 in 2020. This was a large increase of 38.95% over last year. These consisted of the blind (39), those with low vision (115), the deaf (87), the dyslexics (88) and physically handicapped (94). There were 308 others with other forms of disability that only needed to be given extra time.