By Carol Kasujja Adii
For about three consecutive years, statistics by the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) continue to show poor performance in science subjects, especially Biology.
In comparison to Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics in the 2022 exams, Biology was the worst, done science subject.
Biology was the worst, done subject with 40.8 per cent of candidates scoring two points (Pass E). The same problem persisted through to the 2018 results.
Speaking at the launch of the Biology Society of Uganda (BioSU) at Makerere University, Nixon Opoya, a Biology teacher at O and A level with 28 years of experience, said that some Biology teachers are incompetent to teach the student, some of them never go for refresher training courses to re-tool themselves.
“Many Biology teachers do not want to learn to get new skills, by failing to go back they also fail to simplify the content to make students love the subject that is why we are seeing poor performance,” Opoya said.
During a panel discussion to find out why most students are failing Biology, Peter Watiti, a head teacher of Bekam Primary and Nursery School, noted that most teachers at Primary level where pupils start to learn about living and non-living things, do not motivate the learners to love sciences.
“At lower primary level, that is where we introduce living and non-living things. This is when pupils start developing negative attitudes but instead of teachers encouraging them to love the subject they just ignore them,” Watiti said.
Watiti said failure to teach pupils or students using practical lessons has also affected their performance.
“We need to teach students using a lot of experiments but most times we teach from abstract which is dangerous. Children at that age should do more trips so that they get exposed,” Watiti said.
Scientists also agreed that to improve performance, the Biology Society should organize competitions for science students to compete.
“Most students do not have career guidance. Most of them the only successful biologist they know are teachers themselves. To improve performance, teachers should expose their pupils and students to successful biologists like PHD holders in different Universities,” Watiti noted.
To improve performance, Makerere University has launched a Biology Society Of Uganda to foster a lively and early interest in biology in order to improve learning outcomes from Primary to University level and beyond.
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