By Catherine Bekunda
and Joyce Namutebi

POOR performance in the Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) was caused by insufficient homework and lack of proper planning by teachers, education minister Namirembe Bitamazire has said.

Bitamazire told Parliament that the most affected pupils were those in rural areas because they fail to link topics during examinations.

Bitamazire was on Thursday responding to a question raised by Soroti MP Alice Alaso (FDC) on what her ministry was doing to reduce the high failure rates in PLE.

A total of 27,330 of the 485,752 pupils who sat PLE from the central region failed, while 28,688 out of 115,278 from the eastern region failed.

Another 2,002 pupils of the 7,357 who sat for PLE in the north-east failed, 17,733 pupils from the north failed, while 6,477 in the south-west and 7,076 in the western region failed.

Parliament also heard that insufficient coverage of the syllabus and little attention given to individual differences during the learning process caused poor performance.

Bitamazire told MPs that her ministry would strengthen monitoring and inspection in all schools.

“We also encourage parents to participate in the monitoring and supervision of both the teachers and pupils,” she advised.

Bitamazire also said having regular writers clubs, drama and debates would improve performance in PLE.

“We shall encourage use of oral work like dictation, spelling and story telling in the teaching of English,” she said.