How UNEB ranks students

Apr 28, 2002

It gets tricky when someone with AABC is ranked higher than one of AABB

By John EremuTHE Mukono-based Lugazi Mixed Secondary has questioned the formula used by the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) to rank the best ‘A’ level students. This was after one of their students, who appeared to have scored better grades was left out of the list of top students in Mukono district. Last Year, Gayaza High and Kampala secondary school also disputed the rankings.The technicalities involved in the ‘A’ level rankings are far too complex than one may think. The way science subjects are weighted is different from that of arts. The situation is further complicated by the fact that some subjects are divided into three papers and others two.According to Dan Nokrach Odongo, the UNEB deputy secretary - secondary, the various papers are marked and actual scores (raw marks) awarded. The marks are then fed into the computer before the board’s top management meets to decide the cut-off points. Using a special programme, the computer is then instructed to translate the raw marks for each paper into stanine grades. The stanine grades are usually represented in letter forms. This is where we have Distinction One (D1), D2, Credit three (C3), C4, C5, C6 and then Pass 7 and 8 and failure or F9, just as is done for the ‘O’ level grading.“These grades are again entered into the computer which is again instructed to marry the stanine grades for all the papers to come up with the subject grade which is also scored in a letter form,” Odongo said.The highest grade score at “A” level is an A, which carries six points. This is followed by B with five points, C- four points, D - three points and E - two points. These are called principal passes. We also have O, which carries one point and is usually referred to as a subsidiary pass. Then there is F (failure) with no point. A candidate who scores between D1 to C6 in General Paper (GP) or any subsidiary subject like sub-mathematics gets a point.But Odongo explained that not all the letters carry the same weight. For instance, he said, there is the super A or A+ and an ordinary A. The same applies to the other letters. “However, when UNEB is reporting, we do not desegregate these in the rankings,” Odongo said.He explained that, a candidate who scores D1s, say in Economics papers one and two gets an A just like the one who has scored a D2 and a C3 in the two papers respectively. The only difference is that the first candidate will have a super A and will automatically be ranked above the second candidate by the computer. Odongo said a distinction or a credit in General paper carries only one point and as such, does not affect the weighting of principal subjects. This was apparently why the candidate from Uganda Martyrs Namugongo, who scored four As and a C6 in GP during the 2000 examinations was put above the Gayaza girl who had four As and a C3 in the same subjects.The ranking even becomes trickier where a candidate with two As a B and a C is ranked above that with two As and two Bs. This was the case this year where two girls from Mt. St. Mary’s College Namagunga who scored two As a B and C where ranked above Nathan Gessa from Lugazi Mixed school. Gessa had two As and two Bs.Odongo explained that a candidate who consistently scores super grades may end up with higher raw mark scores than the one who scores ordinary grades. For instance, if the cut-off points for a D1 is 75% and above, D2 is between 61 - 74% and C4 is 45 to 50%.Assuming anyone who gets aggregate score five (D2 and C3) gets an A and whoever gets aggregate score seven (C3 and C4) gets a B. Candidate X scores 61% (D2) and then 51% (C3) and gets an A. Candidate Y gets 60% (C3) and 50% (C4) and gets a super B. Note that the difference between their percentage score is just two marks.If candidate X maintains his/her scores at ordinary As and candidate Y gets two super Bs and two super As scoring say over 80%, the latter’s total raw marks will be higher than the former and the computer will automatically put Y above X with four As.Hypothetically, let us say both candidates did History, Economics, Literature and Geography. Assume the principal subjects each had two papers and the candidates scored the following:So, much as candidate X has four As, his/her total raw marks when computed is lower than that of candidate Y with two super As and two super Bs. The computer automatically selects candidate Y to have performed better than X. For sciences, however, if a candidate fails one of the papers, he/she does not get a principal pass. Said Odongo: “These are people who may go for a course in Human medicine or engineering. So we cannot take chances on someone who is doing to deal with life or machine design.”

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});