UNEB releases 2008 O-Level results

Jan 31, 2009

THE 2008 Uganda Certificate of Education, or O’level results, released yesterday. Wakiso, Mbarara and Kampala emerged the best performing districts in the exams.

By Conan Businge,
Fortunate Ahimbisibwe
and Raymond Baguma

WAKISO, Mbarara and Kampala were the best performing districts in last year’s Uganda Certificate Education exams.
2007

In a ranking of 79 districts, Wakiso emerged the best with 14.8 percent of its candidates in Division One, followed by Mbarara (14.5 percent) and Kampala (13.6 percent). They were followed by Mukono, Luweero, Jinja, Bushenyi and Mpigi. These were followed by Tororo, Kotido, Masaka, Rukungiri, Kabale and Kayunga.

The ranking was based on the percentage passes in divisions one and two. Nyadri, which was recently created out of Arua, was not considered by the national examinations body as a separate district.

The surprise of the year was Kotido, which featured among the top ten districts. Kotido had 174 candidates of whom 15 passed in division one, making a percentage of 8.6. The district has just a couple of missionary secondary schools, with small numbers of students that are easy to give special attention.

Wakiso led principally because it has most of the traditionally best performing schools in the country. Such schools include King’s College Budo, Gayaza High School, Uganda Martyrs’ SS Namugongo, St. Mary’s College-Kisubi, St. Mary’s-Kitende and Trinity College Nabbingo.

Whereas Wakiso was the best in terms of Division 1 and 2, it also had the highest number of failures.

The headmaster of Budo SS, Lawrence Muwonge, in an interview with Saturday Vision said “the district is organised. We have a joint association of teachers. We set joint mock exams for all candidates.”

He added that being an urban district also favoured it.

Mbarara also has some of the top schools in the country, including Ntare School, Maryhill High School and Mbarara High School.

Maryhill head teacher Margaret Atim said, “There is co-operation amongst the three schools of Mbarara, Mbarara High School, Ntare School and Maryhill High School. We co-ordinate and hold joint seminars.”

Atim said that the good performance by a rural district like Mbarara serves to show that for a school to perform well, it does not necessarily have to be located in the central region.

The worst performing districts were Nebbi, Adjumani, Kaberamaido, Katakwi, Amuria and Bugiri. Others were Bukwo, Kiboga, Kyenjojo, Yumbe and the President’s home district Kiruhura.
The central region was the best in the first 20 districts, followed by the western region.

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