Education Minister hails record number of girls who sat UCE
by The Independent
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Minister of Education and Sports Janet Museveni said she is happy to hear that more girls sat for the Uganda Certificate of Education-UCE exams in 2019.
According to Uganda National Examinations Board-UNEB, 169,258 girls registered and sat for the 2019 exams against 168,462 boys.
Janet Museveni said the results show that the NRM policies towards the girl child are working.
She said that in the last few years, PLE was registering more girls than boys, but this year not only more girls sat for exams at O-Level but also at the recent graduation at Makerere University had more female than male students.
“As a result of Universal Secondary Education, we have witnessed a leap in girl’s education. We have to see that girls are not only getting in school but are completing all levels of education. As we get more girls in school our society will become better and families will have a better quality of life,” Museveni said.
She, however, stressed that although they are excited about the increase in girls who are completing UCE, as a ministry they have not lost focus on the boy child. She said they are working towards achieving gender parity at all education levels.
The UNEB Chairperson Prof. Okwakol said that there are immense benefits in educating the girls. She called upon all stakeholders to make sure that this trend is maintained.
However despite more girls registering and sitting for 2019 exams, the trend in performance where the boys outshine them remains the same.
For example, 16,513 boys got first grades as compared to 11,329 girls. 32,676 boys got second grades against 37,544 girls. More girls were getting third and fourth grades and those failing than boys.
At the district level save for Iganga where 310 girls got first grades against 223 boys, in Kalungu 210 girls got the first grade against 167 boys, Kole 52 girls passed in first grade against 29 boys, Napak 11 girls got the first grade without a single boy getting one, Rukungiri with 354 girls against 140 boys and Tororo with 215 girls against 191 in the rest of the 118 districts more boys got first grades than girls.
The girls also performed poorly in science subjects such as Chemistry, Biology, Physics and only outperformed boys in the English language like it has always been the trend.
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