UCE: They failed sciences despite huge pay cheques

Despite a strong government push for sciences and a huge pay cheque for science teachers, official figures show a worrying decline in candidates’ overall performance in national examinations.

At State House, Nakasero, Ministry of Education and Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) officials were at pains to announce the dismal performance during the official release of the 2022 UCE results last week.

About 345,695 candidates (173,761 males and 171,934 females) sat for the examinations –15,103 more than the 330,592 candidates, who sat in 2020. Whereas the board registered a generally better performance and the failure rate dropped by 1.0 per cent, performance in sciences is still a threat to the government push for science education as the engine of national development.

To improve performance, President Museveni ordered a huge pay rise for science teachers last financial year–triggering pro-tests from Arts teachers.

Currently, the highest-paid science teacher earns Shs 4.2 million up from Shs 1.7 million while the lowest paid earns Shs 2.2 million up from Shs 933,966. For Arts teachers, the highest paid scale of U3 has stagnated at Shs 1.3m. The lowest paid arts teacher takes home Shs 784,214 (scale U5). The huge pay cheque for science teachers has not triggered a turnaround in student performance.

UCE examinations test the candidates’ knowledge, understanding, and ability to apply the knowledge acquired to solve problems in given novel situations and to show analytical skills.

In Sciences, examinations test the candidates’ ability to use science apparatus in experiments and to apply the science process skills of making measurements and observations, recording observations, and other data from experiments. Students are expected to draw inferences from observations.

POOR SCIENCE RESULTS

Uneb Executive Director, Dan Odongo, said the board has persistently observed that candidates perform better in low-order questions compared to those, which require application of knowledge skills.

In sciences, candidates showed weakness in handling apparatus during practical tests. Weaknesses were also seen in making and recording observations and drawing conclusions from those observations; tabulation of experimental results and interpretation of the results to meet the demands of the question.

“They also showed poor mathematical skills required in calculations, inability to write the correct symbols of elements, formulae of compounds, and equations, among others. This is a perennial problem,” Odongo said.

He added: “You find many candidates with tables filled with data gathered from experiments and they stop at that. They leave the rest of the page blank and don’t know how to proceed with the data.”

Odongo also pointed to what he referred to as “a very unfortunate practice,” probably being encouraged by teachers, where a candidate takes the first reading in a practical paper, and then for the subsequent readings, the candidate merely adds a fixed value thus ending up with forged figures of experimental results.

For instance, if a candidate is supposed to take six readings in a paper, the next five readings simply vary by a fixed value from the first one.

“In the end, you may find that candidates, a large number of them, have reproduced the same reading, which is impossible when candidates are working independently,” he said. Uneb examiners also found that most candidates showed a lack of practical experience in handling apparatus because many schools tend to handle practical aspects of the curriculum much later in the course. As a result, students do not develop the necessary skills.

This could explain why most of the exam malpractice cases are in science practical papers, especially physics. At least the results of 1,035 candidates were withheld by Section 5 (2) (b) of the UNEB Act No 1 of 2021.

Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics have been the most affected, with external assistance by third parties, collusion among candidates willing to share their work, impersonation, and script substitution.

At the subject level, Odongo noted an improvement in performance in the large entry compulsory subjects except in Christian Religious Education, Biology, and Commerce. Mathematics posted better performance at the distinction level but declined overall. English Language showed better performance with improvement at credit and overall pass levels but declined at the distinction level.

“Performance in Biology has continued to decline as seen in the last few years. It is worth noting that performance in Physics and Chemistry has improved, although the overall pass levels are still low. At least over 40% of the candidates have not passed these two subjects,” he said.

In Biology, out of the 345,275 candidates who sat for this subject, only 2.7 per cent passed with distinction compared to 0.7 per cent in 2020. At credit and pass levels, the percentage of passes dwindled from 28.2 and 64.3 respectively in 2020 to 26.7 and 63.7 per cent in 2022.

WHAT NEXT?

According to the Uneb Chairperson, Prof Mary Okwakol, it is evident, from the examiner’s reports, that much of the teaching in sciences is theoretical and not sufficiently practical. She said candidates are taught under the abridged curriculum due to the impact of Covid-19 on learning time, but how the bridging was done did not affect the content, knowledge, skills, and competencies that the candidates had to display in the examination.

“The teaching of science subjects will continue to require concerted efforts to improve performance to ensure that there are sufficient numbers of students for admission in the science-based disciplines at higher levels,” Okwakol said.

“The board applauds the efforts of government in the provision of laboratory equipment to schools, in-service programmes such as SESEMAT, and the recent enhancement of science teachers’ salaries. We hope that these interventions, some of which, like SESEMAT, have been on for a long period, translate into better performance by candidates.”

Education minister Janet Museveni acknowledged the poor performance in Biology, which has been re-occurring through subsequent releases of the UCE results.

“The ministry notes that this year the overall performance in the Science subjects that are compulsory is not yet satisfactory although there is some improvement. Government is committed to promoting the teaching and learning of science subjects as you know. The ministry will look into this matter and where necessary re-examine our policies to address areas of concern in this regard,” she said.

Museveni appealed to teachers to give effect to the significant interventions that the government has put in to improve the teaching of sciences.

PERSISTENT ISSUES

This year, examiners reported better quality work in the 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 or what they call “model compositions” with unusual and difficult vocabulary.

They then reproduce the crammed passages irrespective of the tasks of the composition. According to Odongo, this practice is, fortunately, declining because candidates who do this are severely punished and lose marks.

“In comprehension passages, candidates found difficulty in extracting appropriate information to correctly answer the questions based on the passage. There are also weaknesses in using the correct grammar in sentence construction. Some candidates also use SMS language such as writing “before” as “b4” and they expect the examiner to understand the short forms which are not in the English language,” he said.

The challenge of language deficiency is also reflected in the performance of other subjects, where chief examiners continue to report failure by candidates to interpret the demands of the tasks set, failure to follow instructions, misunderstanding keywords used in the stem of a question, and generally poor language expression.

Meanwhile, on Monday, Uneb started issuing hard copies of the UCE 2022 results to heads of centers while soft versions were sent to school portals last week. Odongo urged school heads to study the results lists and submit any queries to the Uneb secretariat via the portal within 15 working days from the release date (February 9, 2023).

Queries submitted thereafter may not be attended to. The senior five selection exercise at the UMA exhibition hall, Lugogo was set for February 23 and 24 while students will report for A-level on March 6, 2023.

nangonzi@observer.ug