Poor performance in Biology at UACE: A simple proposal

OPINION  EDUCATION 

The results of UACE for the year 2019 were released on 27th February 2020, and by now the "results fever" should have subsided to accommodate vantage points-of-view about the same results.

I am particularly interested in Biology for four obvious reasons:

(i) I am a Biologist;

(ii) I am among the professors mentoring a fraction of those who make it to University immediately after their UACE;

(iii) I am a leader of an academic unit of significant stake on this matter, and;

(iv) I am a believer that significant improvements in performance are possible with minimum effort. This time, there were 44 A's in Biology reflecting a 0.4% improvement in 2019 as compared to 2018.

In 2018, only 1 candidate scored an "A" and about 38% of candidates scored between "B" and "E", while over 60% scored an "O" or "F".

1. "Causing" versus "normalizing" concerns.

It is not too surprising that Biology, whose extraordinary poor performance over the years has again in 2019 raised concerns of the authorities.

While releasing the results, the UNEB Chairperson, Prof. Mary Okwakol was quoted saying "Biology continues to be a cause of concern". She added, "Over the last four years, less than 50% of the candidates obtained passes at a principal level."

Accordingly, as a long-standing issue of national interest, the poor performance in A' level Biology is now like an "annual epitaph" during the release of UACE results.

It is a paradox as to whether our concerns are really still "caused" at all, or they are now fully "normalized" that Biology must be performed poorly by existing standards.

If we are really serious and genuine with our concerns, action should follow henceforth, especially starting with the simpler corrective measures before we attempt the more sophisticated ones. Simpler ones require less effort and/or minimum deployment of resources and may yield greater impact in a relatively short time.

2. Relaxing the "bottleneck" now, 11 months to the next cycle of results release in 2021. The date of releasing the 2019 UACE results was only 5 months downstream of 26th September 2019 when I authored an opinion article in the New Vision entitled "Biology at UACE: How to fix high failure rates".

Although my suggestions were far too late for the 2019 cohort of students, they nonetheless constituted a priming process of positive change that only could be driven forward if evaluated with objectivity.

Assuming that the UACE results of 2020 will be released around the same time in 2021, we have about 11 months and this gives us a tiny window of opportunity do to something deemed critical in light of the concerns.

It is noteworthy that, while Biology suffers a strong "negative selection" at UACE imposed by small numbers of candidates and exacerbated by high failures, the same subject enjoys strong "positive selection" at a professional level, in a sense that the subject is foundational to the largest number of professions downstream of UACE.

Allegorically speaking, a professional "bottleneck" (also called "catastrophe") is highly likely if the negative selective "sweeps" at UACE stay unchecked. 

3. Chance factors cannot explain poor performance in Biology at UACE. Currently, there is no collated empirical evidence explaining why Biology remains a subject of consistent and persistent poor performance at UACE.

While this can be an important research topic, some local educators have argued that this trend is shared also in other countries world over, claiming that Uganda cannot be a special case.

I only agree in part; however, my view is that Uganda's education system is different with unique parameters and/or pressures, and as such, should be looked at in isolation first before pasting it into the global context.

Obviously, all students cannot have equal performance across board; instead, there will be whole range classes from poor to excellent performers in a standard normal distribution pattern.

Similarly, all subjects cannot be performed equally well; some will be done poorly and others very well with a whole range of classes in between.

However, for a single subject, Biology, to be repeatedly performed poorest of all the 26 principal subjects examined at UACE defies the rules of occurrence by chance.

There must be scientific explanations for which solutions should be diligently sought after.

4. The causes and possible solutions are multi-institutional.

I previously advanced four (4) possible hypotheses accounting of poor performance in Biology at UACE. Briefly, these include

(1) insufficient physical infrastructural and human resources for supporting A' level Biology education;

(2) inappropriate methods or structures used by Universities in training A' level Biology teachers;

(3) lack of equal and/or fair topical representation in examination papers leading to persistent over- or under- examination of particular topics over years; and

(4) total absence of a pre-determined examination structure for Biology to guide the candidates and teachers as to what topics should be covered for which examination paper. These hypotheses can be tested.

Certainly, the solution to each of the problems cannot be a mandate of a single institution.

The key institutional players are the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES), National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC), UNEB, and Universities.

Combining the efforts from these institutions would most certainly cause a positive synergistic effect if we assigned each a particular role.

However, given the fatigue of our administrative procedures coupled with the blame game theory, it is unlikely that a combined effect of these four kinds of institutions would be realized in the short to medium term.

In the meantime, poor performance in Biology may further "normalize" or worsen, if nothing at all is done.

5. A simple and cost-effective proposal for short-medium term gains. Serious infrastructure and human resources needed can take too long to assemble and may not ignite the urgently needed effect.

Re-organizing the curriculum can be lengthy too, and this is not a problem anyway.

In contrast, we may archive significant changes in a short to medium term by using what we already have, on condition that we opt to do things differently, lest we fulfil Albert Einstein's view that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results".

We should be willing to change only a few things for the start.

I previously proposed four models, named Model I, II, III and V, as a means of suggesting how to do things differently.

I now contend that simplicity, ease and cost-effectiveness are embedded in implementing Model I and IV, but possibilities under Model II and III should be evaluated if the problem persists even after implementing Model I and IV. 

(a) MODEL I (Administering Biology academic content to student-teachers from a pure science-based unit): At universities, train A' level Biology teachers the way teachers of other subjects are trained (i.e., run Biology under a pure science-based academic unit[s] where there is a greater diversity of competent scientists).

Using an example of Makerere University, a pure science-based unit is the College of Natural Sciences (CoNAS) that also administers teaching subject content for Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics under this model.

However, Biology's huge topical diversity dictates that it is run by two separate academic units in CoNAS; i.e., the two departments formally called Botany (now named Plant Sciences, Microbiology and Biotechnology, PMB) and Zoology (now called Zoology, Entomology and Fisheries Sciences, ZEFS).

Running a teaching subject in a unit that delivers academic content is the style all other A' level teaching subjects in Uganda are administered at University.

Currently, scientists teaching Biology in the College of Education and External Studies (CEES) are too thin on ground and maybe re-deployed into CoNAS (PMB and ZEFS) while upholding and respecting the authority of CEES on matters of professional teacher/career development.

If anything should be done differently in light of the problem at hand, this would be one of them for Makerere University in particular.

(b) MODEL II (Administering academic content to student-teachers in form of BOT-ZOO, followed by a 1-year PGDE): Train Biology teachers by offering 2 pure science subjects of Botany and Zoology (the so-called BOT-ZOO) and later do a PGDE just like the Lawyers who must do a diploma at LDC before they can practice law.

This means at University, there would be two independent training programs for Biology teachers: the traditional/current B.Sc in Education with Biology combined another subject and the other one for BOT-ZOOs graduates who must first secure a PGDE before they can teach.

Although the latter gives student-teachers an excellent dose of Biology, the training process is too long, tiresome, and expensive.

I am personally lucky that my A' level Biology teacher had been trained using this model.

Also, the "BOT-ZOO-trained" teachers, in this case, should receive an equal measure of Botany and Zoology content which is difficult to attain given the concept of majoring and minoring in one subject that came with the semester system. 

(c) MODEL III (Allowing student-teachers to specialize in Biology alone without combing it with any other subject): Allow Biology teachers to still train in CEES or CoNAS but let them specialize in Biology alone without combining it with another teaching subject.

Traditionally, Biology is mostly combined with Chemistry. CEES must retain her mandate in professional career teacher development.

Offering Biology alone as a teaching subject has a disadvantage of denied exposure to Chemistry and teachers may not easily to some topics like respiration, photosynthesis, and nutrient cycling that have a Chemistry texture.

Offering Biology alone as a teaching subject at A' level sounds too early to specialize in the only Biology, but perhaps we can weigh in light of the practice of other peer Universities.

(d) MODEL IV (Re-organizing, pre-determining, and communicating topical range covered under each examination paper): Change the examination style and format by ensuring all topics on A' level Biology syllabus are examinable and in a pre-determined format.

This model is what is used in examining Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, and other subjects, allowing a foreknowledge of the topics covered in a given examination paper.

These can be well established and known to the candidates and teachers using established rules.

In all other subjects, it is common knowledge that a given paper contains particular topics. In Physics for example, topics/sub-topics like Mechanics, Optics, Electricity, Nuclear physics, etc must belong to particular examination papers and questions in these topics (or sub-topics) are not littered anywhere and anyhow in any paper.

In History, European History as a topic that belongs to a particular History paper, Geography follows the same principles and all other A' level subjects.

6. Why Models I and IV are simple and cost-effective, especially Model IV. With Model IV, that assumption is that examinations from UNEB are not set way too long in advance, but even if that was the case, re-structuring the topical composition of examination papers for a single subject is something that can be easily done and communicated to stakeholders.

Apparently this is the same model currently used by most of the A' level subjects, and as such, it is not entirely new.

I propose that UNEB looks into the practicability of this proposal and apply it to Biology, too.

I presume that for the other subjects, there are guiding principles as to what topics are considered for each paper.

For example, it is possible to combine closely related topics/sub-topics (e.g., physiology, homeostasis/osmoregulation, taxonomy, ecology, evolution, genetics, population biology, behaviour and adaptation, etc) in the same paper.

My listing may sound awkward but this is a mere primer for thinking in this direction requires a benchmark of the current curriculum by NCDC.

7. The model I is best suited under the jurisdiction of Makerere University.

The reasoning is that this same model is used for training teachers of all other subjects at A' level, just like for Model IV.

However, this model may guarantee better results only in a longer-term because there is a mandatory period of inertia before any impact can felt.

Nonetheless, exercising objectivity by mandated units is essential.

Units that are strong and mandated to lead in particular disciplines should be allowed to do so, and those that are weak should be supported.

This complementary (as opposed to competition and parasitism) approach should be encouraged, now that the days of over-dependence on student numbers for staff income are long gone.

In particular, CoNAS and CEES should put brains together and propose a detail under the supervision of the senate.

The two units already work together under this same Model I in training student-teachers of Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics, and these subjects have no or fewer problems compared to Biology.

Together, CoNAS and CEES can achieve much and if added to the action points from UNEB under Model IV, we should be certain of not less than 70% improved performance of A' level Biology in a short-medium term.

Dr. Arthur Tugume is an Associate Professor of Plant Virology at Makerere University. He holds a PhD in Plant Pathology from the University of Helsinki, Finland.

He is the current Head, Department of Plant Sciences, Microbiology and Biotechnology in the College of Natural Sciences at Makerere University. 

(e-mail: aktugume@gmail.com)