Africa-Press – Uganda. The 2020 Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) results have seen an improved performance of pupils scoring Division One, despite the lockdown that had pupils spending the entire year at home.
At least 659,910 candidates passed the 2020 PLE compared to only 617,150 who passed the previous year.This means more pupils have qualified to join post-primary institutions than the previous year.
Overall, 11.1 per cent of the candidates passed in Division One compared to 10.1 in 2019, while 56.7 per cent passed in Division Two, same as was in the previous year.
Division Three had 76.6 per cent of the pupils compared to 77.3 per cent in 2019, while Division Four had 89.8 per cent against 90.4 in the previous year.
In the 2020 results, more candidates got Division U, with 10.2 per cent posting the grade, while 9.6 per cent scored the same grade in 2019. These figures do not include withheld results.
According to the Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb), a candidate is deemed to have passed if he/she obtains Divisions 1, 2, 3 or 4.
Such candidates will qualify to register for any post-primary examination conducted by Uneb.
At the subject level, Social Studies emerged as best performed, closely followed by Science, and English Language, with Mathematics trailing.
The results indicate while English Language saw a slight decline at Distinction score, the credit level remained the same as was in the previous year.
Performances in Social Studies, with Religious Education, improved at Distinction and Credit scores, while overall Pass level remained the same.
Integrated Science recorded an improved performance at Distinction level, similar to the levels seen before 2019, but the overall pass level declined slightly, while Mathematics had a slight drop in performance across all three pass levels.
Overall, 14.5 per cent of pupils attained Distinctions in SST, while 79.2 per cent got Credits and 93.1 per cent posted Passes. Science came in the second position with 10.9 per cent of the pupils getting Distinctions, 67.3 with Credits, while 88.1 per cent with a Pass.
English was third best done subject, with 7.2 per cent getting Distinctions, 59.5 per cent getting Credits, while 87.5 registered a Pass. But Mathematics was worst done, with only 4.7 per cent getting Distinctions, 47.2 Credits, while 82.3 had Passes.
While releasing the results yesterday, Mr Dan Odongo, the Uneb executive secretary, said while the Covid-19 pandemic presented unprecedented challenges to the examinations body and running of the examination calendar, their team made sure all went as planned, with the board registering increased enrolment numbers.
A total of 749,761 candidates from 14,300 centres across the country registered for PLE in 2020, compared to 695,804 candidates in 2019.
Of this number, 513,085 (68.4 per cent) from 11,231 centres were Universal Primary Education beneficiaries, and 236,677 (31.6 per cent) of the candidates were non UPE pupils.
With an increase of 53,957 pupils, representing 7.75 per cent over the previous year, Mr Odongo said the increment represented the highest rate of increase recorded, with percentage increments in previous years averaging 2.5 per cent over the last five years.
For five years running, more girls have registered and completed primary level than boys, with 395,836 (52.8 per cent) girls compared to 353,925 (47.2 per cent) boys.
Private schools beat govt schools
Private schools have once again emerged top of the 2020 PLE performance, with 23.9 per cent of the pupils who sat the exams passing in Division One, compared to 5.2 in UPE schools. A staggering 76.1 per cent of the non-UPE candidates got Division Two against 47.6 per cent of the pupils in UPE schools. But 88.4 per cent in private schools scored Division Three against 71.1 in UPE schools.
Also 95.5 per cent of the pupils in private schools got Division Four, while 87.1 per cent in UPE schools were in the same grade.
More failures were registered in UPE schools with 12 per cent against 4.5 per cent in private schools.The Ubeb executive secretary attributed the performance to the fact that most of the non-UPE candidates are from schools located in urban areas.
He said studies conducted by Uneb through National Assessment of Progress in Education have consistently shown that learners in schools located in urban areas achieve higher levels of proficiency than their peers in schools located in rural areas.
“Reasons for this include the fact that teachers in the urban schools tend to spend more time on task, there is a higher level of parental involvement in the learning process, better access to facilities that supplement classroom teaching, etc,” he said.
Boys beat girls in 2020 PLE, more girls complete primary school
The 2020 PLE results released yesterday show that girls have outshone their male counterparts in English Language, but the boys remained dominant in Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies.
The results released by Education minister Janet Museveni at State House Entebbe yesterday show that 44,877 boys passed in Division One, compared to 36,987 girls. A total of 163,973 boys passed in Division Two compared to 170,738 girls.
At least 63,781 boys passed in Division Three compared to 82,361 girls. But 30,394 of the boys failed the exams compared to 43,924 girls.
However, 7.1 per cent of the male candidates got Distinctions in English compared to 7.3 of their female counterparts. In SST, 15.3 per cent of the boys obtained Distinctions, while 13.7 of the girls got the same.
Science had 11.8 per cent of boys with Distinctions, while girls came out with 10.2 per cent.Mathematics had 5.2 per cent of the boys getting Distinctions against 4.3 per cent of the girls.
Uneb Executive Secretary Dan Odongo said while the examiners again reported good handwriting and organised work presented by candidates, the number of candidates scoring zero in various subjects has increased compared to the previous year.
“As we have reported in previous years, candidates’ performance in English and Mathematics tended to be poorer in questions requiring free expression or application of learned concepts in problem solving situations. Candidates performed better in questions that were direct and based on recall,” he said.
