(This article was first published in the New Vision on 11th August 2021)
By Conan Businge
Mwalimu has ranked schools at the Government scholarship entry level and at the entry of Makerere University, which always takes the lion’s share of private admissions because of its capacity and various other factors. Based on last year’s analysis, the study shows that King’s College, Budo; St Mary’s Kitende, Central College Mityana and Uganda Martyrs Secondary School, Namugongo, had the highest percentage of their candidates picked on Government merit admissions, writes Conan Businge
As parents continue to make considerations for which school to take their children for A’level, one of the considerations is ability to have students qualify for university admission.
Mwalimu has ranked the schools at the government scholarship entry level and then at the entry of Makerere University, which always takes the lion’s share of private admissions.
Based on last year’s analysis, the study shows that King’s College Budo, St. Mary’s SS Kitende, Central College Mityana and Uganda Martyrs SS Namugongo had the highest percentage of their candidates picked on Government Merit Admissions.
The other schools were Mt. St. Mary’s Namagunga, Gayaza High, Greenlight Islamic, God’s Way High, St. Andrea Kaahwa, Seeta High and St. Julian High (Gayaza). Seeta High (Mukono), Mayhill High and Light Academy follow in the rankings.
The ranking considered students who were to Makerere University, Makerere University Business School, Kyambogo University, Gulu University, Busitema and Mbarara University of Science and Technology.
There were about 2,200 students who got considered in this ranking, which excludes a few universities, whose lists are not yet released. The universities not considered are Busitema, Kabale, Muni and Soroti.
Only 2,136 students out of over 104,000 candidates who sat for the 2019 UACE examination, got admitted to universities on Government scholarship.
More so, of the 2,298 UACE schools and centres in the country, only 367 had their candidates selected for admission on various programmes in the selected universities.
There are 216 schools which had one or two students admitted on Government scholarship in the selected universities, but have been omitted on the list of ranking. A handful of schools, whose totals could not be readily obtained, are listed, but not necessarily ranked.
Private Admission
In regard to students who were admitted to privately sponsor themselves, private schools once again had the highest number of students joining only Makerere University through this window.
Apart from Gayaza High School, Trinity College Nabbingo, Nabisunsa Girls and Bweranyangi Girls, the top 20 schools were all private or mission schools which are just government-aided, in the country.
In the top 10, St. Mary’s SS Kitende, St. Peter’s Naalya and Naalya SS Namugongo were the top three schools with the highest number of students admitted at Makerere University.
In the fourth position was St. Joseph’s SS Naggalama, followed by Gayaza High School, the Academy of St. Lawrence, Seeta High School, Maryhill High School, Trinity College Nabbingo and Cornerstone Leadership Academy and then Uganda Martyrs SS Namugongo.
The ranking was based on schools with the highest percentage of students admitted on private sponsorship, in comparison to the number of candidates who sat Senior Six in 2019.
The ranking for private admissions only considered Makerere University, since it always admits almost half of the entire country’s Senior Six leavers and the other half of the students are admitted to the other universities in the country.
There were 1,210 schools that were considered in this ranking. About 20 schools which did not have their results initially released by the Uganda National Examinations Board, were left out of the ranking. Most of the students who were admitted to Makerere this year, are those who finalised their Uganda Advanced Certificate of Examinations last year; with a few others from the previous years.
Makerere University this year admitted about 15,000 students.
According to the Uganda National Examinations Board, total of 104,476 candidates registered for the 2019 UACE examinations at 2,298 centres, compared to 99,516 candidates at 2,094 centres in 2018. This is an increase of 4,960 candidates (5.0%).
There were 103,429 candidates who sat the examinations, compared to 98,254 in 2018, an increase of 5,175 candidates (5.3%).
The private admissions list follows the one for Government admission, which was released a couple of months ago.
Private schools still topped the government admissions in all public universities this year. There were a few public schools in the top 20. King’s College Budo, a government-aided school, was followed by privately owned St. Mary’s Kitende, Central College Mityana and Uganda Martyrs SS Namugongo.
The other government-aided schools with highest percentage entry were Mt. St. Mary’s Namagunga, Maryhill High School and Gayaza High School.
The other private schools with the highest percentage entry are Greenlight Islamic, God’s Way High, St. Andrea Kaahwa, Seeta High and St. Julian High (Gayaza). Seeta High (Mukono) and Light Academy were also on the list.
The ranking considered students admitted in Makerere University, Makerere University Business School, Kyambogo University, Gulu University, Busitema and Mbarara University of Science and Technology.
Those With No Student At Makerere
There were 1,972 schools which had students sitting national emanations last year, according to the Uganda National Examinations Board. However, of these, there are 762 schools, which did not have any student admitted to Makerere University.
However, there are other 50 universities in the country, which will have to share the remaining lot of about 38,000 students.
Most of the students who applied did not make it to Makerere University admissions. Close to 30,000 students, according to sources in the academic registrar’s office, had applied to be admitted to Makerere University.
Prof. Mary Okwakol, the chairperson of UNEB, says: “Of the candidates who sat for national examinations, more than half, 65,723 qualified for university admission, up from 63,123 in 2018.”
This represents an increase of about 2,600, according to the Uganda National Examinations Board results released last month.
Competition for vacancies at university remained high this year due to improved performance and increased number of A’level candidates who qualify for university entry. Arts courses were better done than the science ones. However, that does not negate the fact that it remained competitive to be enrolled on science courses, in all public universities as well.
This year, the cut-off points were raised for admissions to most of the science courses. It was the same trend in the previous year’s admissions.
Cut-offs are generated by scoring all applicants, and ranking them in the order of their performance per course. The person with the lowest points in performance determines the cut-off mark.
The top 10 courses which have remained with the highest number of candidates admitted on private sponsorship are civil engineering (day), architecture (day), civil engineering (afternoon), electrical engineering (day) and journalism and communication (day).
Best S6 Schools Top Govt Admissions
Most of the top schools in last years A’level exams are still the best ranked in having more students admitted on government sponsorship.
King’s College Budo, God’s Way High School, St. Mary’s Kitende and St. Julian High School topped the country’s A’level rankings this year.
The others were Gayaza High, Uganda Martyrs SS Namugongo, Seeta High School, Cornerstone and Mt. St.Mary’s Namagunga.
These schools had the highest average point score, compared to the rest of the 1,200 schools that were ranked in New Vision.
There are about 1,900 schools which had candidates who sat for the final examinations, but New Vision ranked the top 1,200 schools.
The ranking was based on data obtained from Uganda National Examinations Board. All points scored in a given class were added, and later divided by the number of students in that given class. This is called the average point score. The higher the average point score, the better the ranking.
Unlike the ranking in O’level or primary school system, students are scored on the basis of points and not aggregate. Unlike the ranking when using aggregates for O’level and primary, in this case, the use of points means that the higher the aggregate score, the better.
