2,000 fail primary teachers’ exams

Apr 05, 2010

A quarter of the candidates who sat for the second set of the 2009 primary teachers examinations failed, according to the results released on Thursday.

By Jeff Lule

A quarter of the candidates who sat for the second set of the 2009 primary teachers examinations failed, according to the results released on Thursday.

Out of 9,172 candidates who sat the exams, 5,465 passed with credit, a decline compared to the first set.

Another 1,323 got an overall pass, while 151 were un-graded, said Kyambogo University vice-chancellor Isaiah Omolo.
Omolo said only five candidates passed with distinction, compared to 21 in the first set of examinations.

The best performing college was Bishop Stuart PTC, Kibingo, with 93.8% pass overall, followed by Bushenyi PTC, with 92.7% pass.

Best candidates were Azubu Rassul from St. John Bosco PTC, Lodonga and Allan Naturinda from Busheyi PTC, both with 11 aggregate. Boaz Tumusiime from Bushenyi got 12 aggregate.

Out of 6,793 candidates who passed, 56% were male and 44% female. The subjects that scored the highest marks were professional education studies, science, language, and cultural education. Social studies and mathematics were the worst performed.

“This country still needs more professional primary teachers to create a strong foundation at the lower level if we want better students at university level,” Omolo said.

Releasing the results at the ministry headquarters, the State minister for primary education, Kamanda Bataringanya, stressed that Grade III teachers were the backbone of the education system.

“To improve the quality of our education, the emphasis has to be put on primary teachers. This explains why teacher training has been a priority in ongoing primary education reforms,” he noted.

He said policy guidelines have been put in place to improve the quality and increase the number of primary teachers to match the needs of the universal primary education programme.

He stressed that all teachers must be knowledgeable in key subjects such as mathematics, science and English language, which are the main medium of teaching and communication internationally.

“We are going to be strict in ensuring that all students pass these subjects before joining any PTC and existing colleges. We rather have a few who will contribute to the modernisation of the system,” Bataringanya said.

Recently, education minister Namirembe Bitamazire said the country has a deficit of 132,000 primary school teachers to meet the required teacher-pupil ratio of 53.

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