CHALLENGES OF THE NEW CURRICULLUM COULD NOT STOP BISHOP OGEZ HIGH SCHOOL IN ISHAKA FROM FLYING HIGH IN THE 2024 UCE EXAMINATIONS

Rev. Father Vicent Mucunguzi, the deputy head teacher of Bishop Ogez High School in Ishaka speaking to www.mknewslink.com in his office.
BY JIMMY MUWANIKA AND WILBER MUHWEZI KASIBANTE (MK)
IN GREATER BUSHENYI…
The lower secondary school curriculum has been a challenge from the time it was started and introduced in Uganda’s secondary schools. Oh yes! The curriculum has gone on to challenge officials in the ministry of education, school heads, teachers and has not left even the students behind.
But despite all the hurdles and challenges that came with it, they were not enough to stop students of Bishop Ogez High School in Ishaka from performing excellently up to cloud 9 in the just released 2024 Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) Uganda Certificate Examinations (UCE) results.
According to Rev. Father Vicent Mucunguzi, the deputy head teacher of the school, the challenges were too much to contain but could not stop them from guiding their students to the excellent performance they exhibited in the examinations.
Speaking to www.mknewslink.com after this online publication news team visited the school to report about the school’s performance, Rev. Father Mucunguzi said; “we got more challenges with the new lower curriculum. Some of these things, we started when we were not sure. Sometimes we would go for retooling.”
He added; “retooling a teacher, means that the teachers had just been trained to teach; and teaching the old curriculum. But when time came for the new curriculum, we started teaching it without being trained on it.” Rev. Father Mucunguzi says this was the most challenging bit about the whole thing.
The Rev. Father is thankful to the several workshops which were always organized to help their teachers adapt and get to understand how to handle the new teaching program.
A total of 260 learners sat for last year’s UCE final examinations at Bishop Ogez High School in Ishaka and all of them passed excellently in Result 1, making them eligible to attain the UCE certificate and to join the advanced level.
In the new Lower Secondary Curriculum in Uganda, the letter grades (A, B, C, D, F) are converted into points as follows: A: 5 points, B: 4 points, C: 3 points, D: 2 points and E: 1 point.
These points are then summed up to give a total score, which is used to determine the student’s overall performance. For example, if a student gets: A in Mathematics, that is equal to 5 points, B in English (4 points), C in Science (3 points). Their total score would be: 5 + 4 + 3 = 12 points.
This total score is then used to determine the student’s overall grade and ranking.

A summarized copy of the 2024 UCE results of Bishop Ogez High School in Ishaka.