Exam malpractices decline as girls beat boys in 2018 UACE

By George Mangula

The executive Secretary of Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB), Dr. Dan Odongo, has said examination malpractices have gone down as female candidates outperformed their male counterparts in the 2018 Uganda advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) examinations.

The UACE were released this morning at the President’s Office in Kampala.

Last year, UNEB registered a total of 99,576 candidates for UACE exams from 2,094 centres compared to 101,269 candidates from 1918 centres in 2017, a decrease of 1,693 candidates. 1,052 however didn’t show up for exams.

“UNEB has withheld results of 91 candidates from 21 centres. The most common forms of examination breaches have been external assistance,” said Odongo, adding that malpractices have greatly declined.

Odongo said centre number U2804 allocated to Seesa High School, Kakungube is being withdrawn for gross violation of examination regulations both at UCE and UACE.

He said female candidates performed better than male counterparts at the principal level passes in Arts, Physics and Agriculture however Male candidates were better in Mathematics, Chemistry, Biology and General paper.

“The failure rate among female candidates is also lower at 0.8 per cent than for all the male at 1.8 per cent, this scenario is similar to that of 2017,” he said.

He said, Good performance were exhibited by candidates from mainly the traditional government schools and some of the better established private schools. These candidates demonstrated adequate knowledge of the subject matter.

Minister for higher education John Chrysostom Muyingo who received examination results on behalf of First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Museveni, said government would support UNEB in all ways to eliminate the vice.

“The country should know that the war against examination malpractices is like that against corruption. It’s a war that must be fought by all of us,” he said.­­

Meanwhile, UNEB has disclosed that some schools in Uganda issue fake UACE results which they purport to be genuine results with the intention of pleasing candidates and their parents.

UNEB chairperson, Prof Mary Okwakol, warned that such schools risk having their examination centres closed.

“It has come to the attention of the board that some head teachers issue fake examination results which they purport to be UNEB results with the intention of falsely pleasing parents,” she said.