East African Gazette
Kampala
The prisoners in Uganda who took the Uganda 2023 Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) are now eligible to pursue high school education after scoring required grades.
Based on the PLE results released by the Uganda National Examination Board (UNEB), today January 25, 2024, a total of 69 candidates from prison registered for the exams, out of which 60 sat.
Among these candidates, two obtained a division 1 grade, 32 achieved Division 2, 15 attained Division 3, five received Division 4, and six were ungraded.
According to the UNEB, a total of 749,254 candidates from 15,859 centers registered for PLE in 2023 compared to 832,654 in 2022.
Of this number, 501,602 (66.9%) from 11,365 centers were Universal Primary Education (UPE) beneficiaries, and 247,652 (33.1) of the candidates were Non UPE.
Decline in general performance
Based on the overall findings, there has been a decline in performance across all subjects when compared to the preceding year of 2022.
The Executive Director of the organization, Dan Odongo, highlighted in his statement that a significant number of candidates achieved a pass grade of Division three and above.
He observed that there was a proportional pass rate among many candidates in both Science and Mathematics.
“A higher proportion of the 2023 candidates passed in Division 3 and above level. Overall, the performance of candidates is comparable to that of 2022,” he added.
He noted that a significant number of candidates in Division U (ungraded), is relatively high at 88,269 (10.4%).
He cited districts such as Kibuku (31.5o), Madi Okollo (31.5%), Dokolo (28.9%), Kween (28.4%), Namisindwa (28.9%) whose percentages are well above the national average.
Odongo emphasized the importance of investigating the reasons behind the high percentage of candidates in Division U in many other districts, which exceeds 20%.
He said it is crucial to identify the causes and take appropriate measures to resolve them.
Boys outperform girls
Results indicate the boys performed better than the girls. According to the results, 47,452 boys were in Division One, representing 13% compared to 39,130 girls in Division One, representing 9.99%.
A total of 164, 906 boys (46%) boys were in Division Two compared to 171, 601 (43%) girls; while 69,870 boys (19.53%) were in grade 3 while 86,420 (22.07%) girls were in the same grade.
Girls performed better than boys in English, where 90.64% passed English compared to the boys who are 88.32% but the reverse is true for the other three subjects; SST, Science, and Mathematics.