(This article was published on the New Vision site on February 9, 2023)
By John Masaba
KAMPALA – The English language has recorded an improvement in the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) results released today by the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) have indicated.
The results indicated an improvement in the subject at credit level and overall pass level, although performance declined at the distinction level.
Releasing the results today, UNEB executive secretary Dan Odongo said overall, female candidates performed better than their male counterparts and that examiners reported better quality work in the subject in last year’s sitting.
He added that, however, students continue to experience some challenges in several areas.
“In composition writing, where candidates are expected to exhibit creativity and originality, learners in some schools are still cramming passages from textbooks or what they call “model compositions” with unusual and difficult vocabulary,” he said.
Odongo added that this practice is, fortunately, declining because candidates who do this are punished by examiners.
In comprehension passages, he said, candidates found difficulty in extracting appropriate information to correctly answer the questions based on the passage.
“The essential skill of extracting main ideas from the passage and writing out a coherent summary still presents a major challenge to most candidates,” he added.
Odongo said the challenge of language deficiency was reflected in performance in other subjects, where chief examiners continue to report failure by the candidates to interpret the demands of the tasks set, failure to follow instructions, misunderstanding keywords used in the stem of a question, and generally poor language expression.
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