University entry points may be stiffer

By Vision Reporters

Competition for places at university is likely to stiffen due to better performance and increased number of A’level candidates in last year’s Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education Examinations.

A total of 109,974 candidates sat for the national examinations late last year, compared to 102,296 candidates in 2011; an increase of 7,679 candidates. This was a 7.5% rise in the number of candidates compared to the previous year.

The number of candidates who are eligible for admission to university also went up. The overall performance of candidates in last year’s national examinations show that a very high percentage of candidates (99.3%), qualified for the award of UACE. In 2011, this was 99.2%.

There was an increase in the number of candidates who got four to two principal passes, which is the minimum requirement for admission into any university in the country.

In the 2011 A’level examinations, 65,417 (64%) candidates passed with four to two principal passes. But, in the 2012 examinations, the number shot up to 76,151 (69.4%).

UNEB executive secretary Matthew Bukenya said this time round, a number of students were able to apply and comprehend the knowledge they had attained in class.

He added that a good number of candidates were able to describe, explain, analyse, discuss and evaluate the examinations; a sign that several candidates were well prepared.”

At three and four principal passes, male candidates performed better than the females.

However, the proportion of females who got two principal passes were higher than males.

Female candidates performed better than males in entrepreneurship education, Islamic religious education, Christian religious education, geography, literature in English, agriculture and biology.

The male candidates were better at economics, mathematics, chemistry, physics and art.

The performance of males and female candidates was at par in history.

There was also an improvement in history, entrepreneurship education, geography, literature in English, chemistry and biology.

However, the performance in economics, Christian religious education, Islamic religious education, mathematics, physics, agriculture dropped at the principal pass level.

University admission cut-off points likely to be stiff

There are 34 universities in Uganda of which only six are public universities.

Majority of students prefer the more established public universities.

Furthermore, some students at public universities benefit from government sponsorship. About 4,000 are admitted on the Government scheme every year.

Last year, the cut-off points were raised for admission to most of the science courses like architecture, telecommunication engineering, civil engineering, computer science, mechanical engineering, nursing and statistics.

This is likely to be the trend this year as far as public universities’ admissions on government and private sponsorship are concerned.

At Kyambogo University, the most competitive courses were civil, building and telecommunication engineering, human nutrition and dietetics, economics and statistics.

At Mbarara University of Science and Technology, medicine, surgery and nursing were the most competitive courses, while at Gulu University, information communication technology, development studies, business administration, medicine and surgery were the most competitive.

The top 10 courses with the highest number of candidates admitted on government sponsorship were medicine and surgery, commerce, arts with education (literature), arts in development economics and business administration.

Others were science education (biological), science education (physical), agriculture, science with education and electrical engineering.

Almost all public universities introduced new courses. A few of the old courses, which had been dropped from government sponsorship list, have also been reintroduced.

Among the new courses under government sponsorship is information systems, software engineering, natural resource economics, water resource engineering, meteorology, biomedical sciences and biotechnology.

If a student fails to make it into the Government admissions list, there is a chance that he can be admitted under the district quota system.

However, not all courses in public universities are sponsored by the Government.

For the seventh year, the Government will not sponsor most of the arts courses. Government sponsorship is limited to science-based courses such as architecture, engineering, medicine, computer science and economics.

Compiled by Conan Businge, Francis Kagolo, Anne Mugisa and Taddeo Bwambale