When the UACE results were released by Uganda National Examinations Board on Friday 3rd March 2023, schoolsuganda.com, an online schools directory, published the results on its platform as usual. They also published an article highlighting 40 schools who got 100% failure rate in ICT , and they also took to twitter to wonder whether the problem was with the teachers or students – a tweet that I had to react to immediately:
@schoolsuganda it's very simplistic to think that performance in a practical subject like ICT is only about teachers and students! Lots of other factors, including limited resources can not just be solved through training. Do analysis in other practical subjects too and compare.
— Mukalele Rogers (@mrogers4christ) March 4, 2023
True, the amount of effort and zeal the ICT teacher puts in and the amount of time he / she gives to her candidates for extra practice are very key factors to determine the final results. But this is not all. There are many other factors that affect the performance of students.
In 2013 I published an article summarising some of the challenges facing implementation of ICT education in Ugandan schools. Some schools have very poor ICT facilities and resources.
Others like USE schools have a plethora of students, and however passionate and hardworking the ICT Teacher is, he/she is overwhelmed by the numbers of students especially in public schools— many of whom dodge classes only to appear for final exams when they can not even save work.
I enjoy passing on #ICT knowledge and skills to the next generation. Computer Lab Practical session with a S2 class at Kololo SS. I thank the school for always giving me opportunity to practice my passion. #RestlessTeachers #ICTTrsUg @ictteachersug @lukyamzronald @SteveUG pic.twitter.com/2IvftZtwY4
— Mukalele Rogers (@mrogers4christ) March 4, 2023
Other schools have modern facilities and alot of time – with a time table stretching from morning prep to evening prep, weekends inclusive and with a manageable number of always-available students. Surely the students in such schools are better placed to excel.
Therefore, as ICT Teachers, we always have to give our best, but other stakeholders like the government, the school administrators, the parents and the students themselves also have a role to play to achieve the good results everyone will be proud to share.
I was also not comfortable with the criteria for subject ranking by Schools Uganda – where they rely on percentage pass without taking the number of candidates a school has prepared into consideration. See top 10 schools from analysis by schools Uganda, obtained from thier website at https://schoolsuganda.com/school-statistics/subject-rankings:

Weighted Ranking
In reaction to the Schools Uganda analysis, I decided to do a weighted ranking of UACE 2022 ICT results by summing aggregates for all candidates in the schools in order to recognize the effort and capacity of schools to prepare candidates for UNEB. Below is the resultant weighted ranking:
[table id=1 /]
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