The improvement was mainly registered in the science subjects as well as the arts in which the latter was performed best by the female candidates and the former by the male students.
UNEB documents indicate that in 2023, 64,782 students passed in the first division which represents 17.9 per cent of the total number of the registered students compared to 46,667 students who passed in the same grade in 2022, which represents 13.5 of the students who registered that year.
Statistics also show that the number of learners who will be able to progress to the advanced level of studies has increased by five per cent from 329,939 students who represented 95.4 per cent in 2022 to 329,939 students which is an equivalent percentage of 95.9 in 2023.
During the release of the results at State House in Nakasero yesterday, the First Lady who doubles as Minister of Education, Ms Janet Kataha Museveni said attributed the increase in performance to the decreasing number of absenteeism from both teachers and students.
“As government, we are pleased to note the increase in candidature for the UCE together with the steady decline in the rate of absenteeism among candidates who register to sit their end of O-Level Examination. Therefore, as a Ministry and all Secondary Schools at large celebrate the reduction of absenteeism,” Ms Museveni said.
But she was also quick to note, “ Nonetheless, we must also take keen interest in establishing what is causing this 5-year long reduction in absenteeism.”
Mr Dan Odongo attributed the performance to the increased understanding of the English language.
“In the English language, the presentation of crammed passages from texts in response to the question on original composition writing has greatly reduced, which may explain the significant improvement in the candidate’s performance,” Mr Odongo said at the release of last year’s examination results.
Many of the teachers that News 24/7 talked to for this story attributed the increase in performance to more discussions, more teaching and encouraging students to read books but most importantly their individual school policies and techniques towards achieving good grades.
For instance, Mr Joel Mugisha, the dean of students at St Peters SSS Nsambya said that after realising that they needed better grades this year, they went back to the drawing board and decided to narrow the curve down to the student- teacher interpersonal understanding.
“We wanted to understand the students at a very personal level and we decided that every teacher was allocated 20 students to follow up and be with them with the purpose of understanding them,” Mr Mugisha said.
This is slightly above the government recommended student-teacher ratio (STR) as per the 2016 ministry of education abstract on the same.
St Peter’s SSS Nsambya managed to significantly record improvement in their performance from 38.2 per cent first grade in 2022 to 49.3 per cent in 2023. In total they got 138 first grades, 97 second, 32 third and 11 in fourth.
