Half of business, technical students fail exams

By Conan Businge and Norah Mutesi         
    
About half of the students who sat for the recent progressive annual business and technical examinations, failed to attain the required performance to allow them normally proceed with their courses.

The Executive Secretary of the Uganda Business and Technical and Examinations Board (UBTEB) John Twesigye, while releasing the examinations Monday, revealed that only 56.3%, of all candidates acquired the necessary competences.

“The 43.7% of candidates did not acquire the competences required, and shall be given opportunity to progress under a probationary progress arrangement to the new semester.”

Those who failed will re-sit the examinations, at the next sitting, for each category of the programme or course. However, most of these candidates, Twesigye said, have one or two subjects to retake in various course programmes.

When a candidate passes all examinations at the end of the year, he is allowed to progress “normally.” However, if one fails some of the examinations, he or she is allowed to repeat the course unit and re-do the examination.

A total of 8,850 candidates registered for examinations. Apart from the end of course examinations, every year, the examinations board runs national examinations for candidates to progress to another year.

Unlike the end of course examinations’ results which are released by the minister, progressive examinations’ results are released by the board officials. Initially examinations were being set by Uganda National Examinations Board, but were recently switched to a new examination Board–UBTEB; which has taken on a number of changes.

The bad performance, according to Twesigye, was attributed to the old education and training system which is different from the new examination Board examination setting.

Some institutions, according to Dr. Wanyama the chairperson of the board Dr. Simeon Wanyama, who released the examinations, were also used to final examinations at the end of the course while Uganda National examination Board was still setting examinations.

But, with the progressive examinations, some institutions lag behind in the syllabus, and fail compete with the rest in national progressive examinations.

He also noted that the candidates are at times not adequately prepared by the institutions for the examinations.

There is not standardised flow of the syllabus on the targets of completion in each given year of study, an issue which is just being streamlined.  

Twesigye also noted that there is a massive gender disparity in business and technical courses in the countries. As females are shunning science related courses and resorting to humanities or arts, male ones are strong at sciences.

A case in point; a total of 1,859 (89.6%) male candidates registered for science programmes while only 216 (10.4%) were female. On the other hand, male students who registered for arts programmes were 2,168 (33.3%) and female ones were 4,337 (66.7%).

The average performance indicates that candidates who sat for various programmes under the diploma in Technical Education did not perform well, with an average of 30% of them realising normal progress.

Almost half of the candidates pursuing diploma programmes in agriculture and fisheries failed and will not attain normal progress.

But all is not bad, with surveying and land management programmes performing better; having 93.1% and 72.5% attaining normal progress.  

Twesigye, among other challenges facing the sub-sector, notes that there is lack of a proper curriculum in most institutions to be followed, low enrolment in some institutions and low funding of the examination management.

Dr. Wanyama said that UBTEB is trying to strengthen its linkage with other international examination bodies, to improve its own performance.