The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Ministry of Education is to begin tracking students to see why the numbers keep on dropping at all levels.
Janet Kataha Museveni, the Minister of Education and Sports says they are worried that many students enroll at different education levels of education but a few are able to complete the cycle.
According to 2009 Ministry of Education and Sports figures, 976,078 kids enrolled for primary one and the same figure was expected to sit for PLE in 2015. However, by the time they sat for their PLE in 2015, this number had reduced to 601777 pupils.
This means that more than a third or 374301 pupils were unable to complete P7. This number further shrunk to 337,720 students whose results have just been released who were unable to complete Senior Four in 2019. It also means that 264,057 students either never joined secondary school or they dropped out along the way before completing S4.
Going by previous figures the number of those students whose results have been released is expected to also drop to half by the time they sit for their final UACE exams in 2021.
According to Janet Museveni, the ministry has also taken cognizant of these figures and they are going to start tracking to see why these students drop out and if they don’t, where do they go.
Although she says some of these students end up in other post primary institutions such as technical schools and other non-formal centers, the issue has been nonetheless a concern to them.
She says that they have been discussing it at sector level and have decided that there is need to investigate it to know with certainty where the students go and what the dropout rates.
She added that as a government they have tried to address the factors that cause student drop out such as introducing free education at both Primary and secondary levels. She was optimistic that moving forward, the figures will begin to drop.
The 2019 results show that 306,924 students passed the exams and can proceed to A-level or other post tertiary institutions.
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