80,643 (73.7%) of the candidates who sat for the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) have qualified for university admission following the released 2023 examination results.
Dan Odongo, the UNEB Executive Director said, “University admissions to degree courses have, up to date, been considering 2 Principal level passes as the minimum requirement. If this consideration is maintained, 80,643 (73.7%) qualify to be admitted, compared to 67,815 (70.3%) in 2022,” he said. “This is consistent with the fact that there was better overall performance and a significant increase in entries for the examination in 2023. In cases where one Principal and two Subsidiary pass levels are considered for admission to other tertiary institutions, 90.7%% of the candidates will qualify. This is better when compared to 2022 with 89.3%.”
Dan Odongo further noted that a total of 110,553 candidates registered for the 2023 UACE examination from 2,102 centres compared to 97,890 candidates from 1,969 centres in 2022 and this is an increase of 12,663 candidates (12.9%).
“Of these, 47,226 (42.7%) were females and 63,339 (57.3%) were males,” he said. “Candidates who appeared for the examination were 109,488, compared to 96,557 in 2022, an increase of 12,931 candidates (13.4%). Of these, 46,860 (42.8%) were females and 62,628 (57.2%) were males. At this level, the number of females,” he noted.
Odongo added, “The numbers of candidates registering and appearing for Mathematics and the Sciences are gradually increasing, with Mathematics showing the greatest promise.”
However, overall, the numbers have remained well below half of the total candidature and this is consistent with the fact that pass rates in these subjects in the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) examination have also been low, impacting transition to UACE.
During the same event, Prof. Celestino Obua, the chairperson of UNEB, said that entries for Sciences at UACE continue to be lower than for Humanities.
“It is gratifying though. that the numbers are going up. Honourable Minister the performance of the candidates has improved especially at the upper level of candidates obtaining 3 Principal passes,” said Prof. Obua. “We note that, once again. female candidates have performed better, proportionally, than males at all levels and have shown a lower failure rate. Even at individual subject levels, they have shown better performance. However, we continue to see a low percentage of female Candidates at this level offering Mathematics and Science combinations. The paradox, Honourable Minister. is that the girls who offer STEM subjects perform well, if not better than the boys. Why then do the girls shy away from these subjects?” Obua said.
He added, “We note that, once again, female candidates have performed better, proportionally than the males at all levels and have shown a lower failure rate. Even at individual subject levels they have shown a better Performance. However, we continue to see a low percentage of the female Candidates at this level offering Mathematics and Science combinations. The paradox, Honourable Minister is that the girls who offer the STEM subjects perform well, if not better than the bovs. Why then do the girls shy away from these subjects?”
Examiners reported improvement in the quality of candidates’ work, with higher mean scores in many subject areas where performance has been reported to have improved. Notable has been Biology, where performance has been rather poor in the past years. The core science subjects continue to show lower than desired principal performance levels. The factors responsible for this state of affairs have been reported by UNEB during earlier releases of #UACE2023 results. They include teaching theoretically, with candidates lacking in practical skills to perform experiments, record and interpret their results. Questions based on practical experience posed problems as a result.
