Kampala – Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has withheld results of 113 candidates who sat for the 2022 Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) exams.
This was revealed on Friday by Dan Nokrach Odongo, the Executive Director UNEB during the release of the 2022 UACE exams at the office of the president in Kampala.
Odongo noted that the cases of malpractice at this level have remained low. He said the reported ones have been mainly external assistance in Mathematics, Biology and Computer studies.
“In accordance with Section 4 (3) of the UNEB Act, 2021, the Board, has withheld results of 113 candidates, and will accord the affected candidates a fair hearing before passing a final verdict,” he said
A total of 97,890 candidates registered for the 2022 UACE examination from 1,969 centres compared to 98,392 candidates from 1,952 centres in 2020 indicating a decrease of 502 candidates (-0.5%).
Prof. Mary Okwakol, Chairperson UNEB noted that there was an improvement in the performance of the candidates especially at the upper level of candidates obtaining three Principal passes while at the other levels, the pass rates are comparable.
Okwakol also revealed that female candidates performed better than their male counterparts.
“As was the case in the 2020 examination, female candidates have proportionally (in terms of percentages) performed better than the males at all levels, and have shown a lower failure rate. Even at individual subject levels, they have shown a better performance,” said Okwakol
She however, noted that female students have continued to shun science subjects.
“However, we continue to see fewer girls offering Science combination. Hon Minister, you had directed that the Ministry of Education and Sports should lead in a study along with UNEB, to investigate the reasons for this. This has not yet been done due to funding problems.Performance in Biology, that had shown improvement in 2020 has again gone down.
The Board believes that the review of the curriculum by National Curriculum Development Centre may solve this problem.