(This article was first published in the New Vision on August 25, 2021)
By Conan Busingye
Competition for places at university is likely to go up this year due to improved performance and increased number of A’level candidates who qualify for university entry.
An analysis of the overall candidates’ performance in the examination shows that a high percentage of candidates (99.2%) qualified for the award of the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE), more than the 98.6% of 2019. This is a better overall performance than that of 2019. At the minimum two principals level that is required for university admission, 68,013 candidates (69.8%) qualify, which is 2,290 more than in 2019. In cases where one principal and two subsidiary passes levels are considered for admission to other tertiary institutions, 89.3% of the candidates will qualify.
Performance of candidates in the large entry subjects and General Paper in 2020 is compared to that in the previous year.
More so, there is overall improvement in the performance in all the subjects, apart from Literature in English. Although there is a drop in the number of candidates registered this year, entries for the science subjects and mathematics increased significantly, compared to entries for 2019. Entries for sciences are, however, much lower than for the Arts subjects.
Uganda National Examinations Board’s executive secretary, Dan Odongo, during the release of results noted that 98,392 candidates registered for the 2020 UACE examination from 1,952 centres, compared to 104,476 candidates from 2,094 centres in 2019. This is a decrease of 6,084 candidates (-5.8%). The number of candidates who appeared for the examinations was 97,490, compared to 103,429 in 2019, a decrease of 5,989 candidates (-5.8%).
The number of candidates registered under the UPOLET programme was 17,647 (17.9%) of the total candidature, compared to 19,361 in 2019 (18.5% of total candidature).
Arts courses are expected to be more competitive than it was the case last year, since they were the better done this year. But, that does not negate the fact that it will remain competitive to be enrolled on science courses, in all public universities as well.
There are 50 universities in Uganda, of which only nine are public institutions. Government has 4,000 scholarships on merit every year.
Last year, the cut-off points were raised for admissions to most of the science courses. This is still likely to be the trend this year.
Cut-offs are generated by scoring all applicants, and later 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 always have the highest number of candidates admitted on private sponsorship are law, civil engineering (day), architecture (day), civil engineering (afternoon), electrical engineering (day) and journalism and communication (day).
The entry points for government courses were topped by civil engineering, petroleum geoscience and production, electrical engineering, education-Kiswahili, development economics and procurement and supply chain management.
If a student fails to make it to the government merit admissions list, there is a chance that he can be admitted on the district quota system. However, not all programmes in public universities are sponsored by the Government. The other option is to wait for private admission in Government or any other private universities in the country. A student can also join any other non-degree awarding tertiary institution
Choose University Course Wisely
Experts in economics say the skill sets required in both old and new occupations will change in most industries and transform how and where people work.
Times are different, and with them come different ‘movers’ in the job sector. In the 1980s, the stockbroker owned the chain of production, in the late 1990s and 2000s, it was computer programmers and now it is time for ‘new movers’ on the block.
With the advent of the automation age, analysts say the next industrial ‘movers’ in the job market are set to be technologically advanced, and most of the jobs will be for customer service specialists.
The 2019 Future of Work OECD Employment Outlook says: “The many countries have seen growth in “new”, non-standard forms of employment, but full-time, permanent employment is still (and is likely to remain) the most prevalent form of employment across advanced OECD countries.
In many cases, these “new” forms of employment are merely shedding new light on old challenges.
The same report says, however, the rights and protection of vulnerable workers falling outside the traditional remit of labour law and social protection should be strengthened.
“Standard, full-time, open-ended employment still accounts for the majority of employment across the OECD. There are several reasons for the continuing appeal of more stable, permanent employment arrangements. From the point of view of workers, such contracts provide more certainty and allow them to plan ahead in both their private and professional lives,” says the report.
The report explains that new forms of work have emerged due to changes in preferences, innovations in business models and work organisation, as well as technological developments (and policy choices).
These include the platform economy, in which workers provide services through online platforms. Many countries have also experienced an expansion of other non-standard forms of work, such as on-call or zero-hours contracts, as well as various forms of own-account work. These more flexible working arrangements have often emerged.
The 2019 Future of Work OECD Employment Outlook adds: “There will be further churning of jobs – with new, different jobs replacing those that are destroyed and this will result in structural change and new skills needs.”
It adds: “Labour markets in most OECD countries have been polarising with substantial growth in the share of high-skilled occupations and some growth in low-skilled jobs, but a fall in the share of middle-skilled ones.” “Employment in the manufacturing sector, in particular, has been on a long-term path of decline (shrinking by 20% over the period 1995-2015), while the share of jobs in the service sector has been steadily rising (growing by 27% over the same period). In emerging economies, there has been a substantial decline in the share of agricultural employment,’ the report adds.
Relatedly, according to the 2018 The Future of Jobs report, the trends driving growth across industries over the 2018–2022 period, are the advances that the mobile Internet is likely to have on the jobs and operations in the aviation; travel and tourism; financial services, investors industries and in the consumer industry.
The report says: “The rapid adoption of new technologies by consumers, as well as advancements in cloud technology are set to drive growth in the information and communications technologies industry, while the availability of big data is expected to have an even broader impact on the financial service and investors and the energy utilities and technologies industries.”
Deeper Reality
Sub-Saharan Africa has the world’s youngest population with more than three-fifths of its population in 2015 under the age of 25, according to the 2019 World Bank report.
This constitutes 20% of the world’s under-25 populations, according to another 2018 report, dubbed Future of Work in Africa, Implications for Secondary Education and TVET Systems
This report shows that the region’s working-age population is estimated to rise from 522 million in 2015 to 600 million in 2030.
The share of the youth in the working-age population was 35.2% in 2015 (184 million) and is expected to rise to 36.9% in 2030 (260 million) which will be bigger than that in China.
The same report says with the right education and training, coupled with national transformation strategies and policies that provide the right environment for rapid economic growth and creation of employment opportunities, Africa’s large and fast[1]growing population could be a great asset for development.
However, the same report on the future for Africa says: “Africa already faces high unemployment, which continues to be on the rise, and vulnerable employment among its youth.” According to the International Labour Organisation reports, youth unemployment is at 10.9%, compared to that of adults at 5.6%.
According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, the unemployment rate for young people in Uganda aged 15–24 is 83%. This rate is even higher for those who have formal degrees and live in an urban area. This is due to the disconnect between the degree achieved and the vocational skills needed for the jobs that are in demand for workers.
Jessica Amara, a retired secondary school teacher, says the degree is not the only qualification that we should focus on to help children get ready for the changing job market.
“Some of the youth without a degree are also not able to obtain jobs because they lack the skills needed for the position or they don’t have the resources, such as land or capital.”
She says what the Government should focus on is skilling Ugandan youths and also availing them capital.
“Some youth also have negative views on certain jobs so they are unwilling to take them if offered a position. This attitude needs to be changed.”
Amara believes that with the attitudinal change, the country will harness more youths who are skilled and are not focused on only white caller jobs.
Youth unemployment poses a serious political, economic and social challenge to the country and its leadership. The cycle is making it increasingly difficult for Uganda to break out of poverty. Young women also more often have to stay at home in a maternal role from a young age which limits their ability to work.
UBOS reports show that the informal sector work accounts for the majority of young workers in Uganda. More so, 3.2% of youth work for waged employment, 90.9% work for informal employment, and 5.8% of the Ugandan youth are self-employed.
Applying For Private Admissions
The assistant academic registrar at Makerere University, Charles Ssentongo, says students need to be careful when filling the application forms. “Each candidate is entitled to only one form; so each student must ensure that the form is neatly and accurately completed. Untidy application forms may be rejected.”
The state minister for higher education, Dr. John Chrysostom Muyingo, says: “Students should seriously think about the choices of the programmes they wish to apply for before completing the application form. This is because it will not be possible to change these choices once the forms have been received by the university.”
“Go for courses that will easily secure you a job, or arm you with skills to start your own enterprise. Don’t just select those courses for the sake of getting a university degree,” he adds.
Muyingo warns that over the years, “some candidates apply for only popular and highly competitive programmes. Such candidates don’t make choices of the curses with lower cut-off points. “In several instances, many of those candidates do not qualify for the highly competitive programmes but would qualify for the less competitive ones if they had applied for them. Be careful.”
Weighting Criteria
All subjects taken at the A’ level are grouped into three categories and weighted as follows for purposes of admission to any programme of undergraduate study in the university.
- The essential subject weighs three points, relevant two points and desirable one point.
- The essential A’level subjects for university programmes must be passed with a principal pass. Only two subjects are designated as “essential.”
- A distinction or credit in a subsidiary paper carries one point. A pass 7 or 8 in a subsidiary subject is treated as a fail and carries no point.
- For O’level grades, distinctions 1 and 2 carry 0.3 points, credits 3 to 6 carry 0.2, passes 7 and 8 carry 0.1 and fail (9) carry 0.0 weights, respectively. For A’level grades, the conversion scale is A=6, B=5, C=4, D=3, E=2, O=1, F=0 points.
Totalling Points
- The O’level weight of a candidate for any programme in the university is obtained by multiplying the numbers of distinctions/credits/passes, by the relevant weights and adding them up.
- The A’level weight, for a given programme of a candidate is obtained by multiplying each subject grade point by the relevant weighting factor and adding up for all the subjects taken and passed.
- The combined weight of a candidate for a given programme is obtained by adding the O’level weight obtained to the A’level weight obtained. The best candidate for each programme is the one with the highest combined weight.
- Candidates are selected on merit from those who apply for a programme as their first choice, plus those who apply for the programme as 2nd, 3rd, 4th choice; if they have not been admitted to programmes of their earlier choices. All choices are considered.
