Katakwi, Kapelebyong Celebrate Improved PLE Results

Katakwi and Kapelebyong districts are celebrating improved performance in the Primary Leaving Examination- PLE results of 2022. The districts tripled their first grades in the PLE results released on Friday. Katakwi district got 151 candidates in first grade compared to 61 in 2020, while Kapelebyong got 35 candidates in first grade, up from 10 in 2020. Some of the schools got first grades for the first time in history and others passed candidates with very impressive grades. In Apuuton Primary School, 51 candidates passed in first grade, while Toroma had 19, the numbers they never registered since inception, over three decades ago. Samuel Ogwere, the head teacher of Katakwi Township Primary School in Katakwi district is excited that his school had six candidates pass with first grades. He attributes this to the good performance to the school feeding program where all the candidates had meals at school. Ogwere says that hunger is one of the major factors failing children from learning in schools especially during afternoon lessons. He says that parents contributed 90,000 Shillings for feeding of each child in candidate class every term, something he notes has contributed to the improved results. //Cue in “Our school management… Cue out…perform well.”// John Bosco Okiror, the Inspector of Schools in Katakwi says that besides the school feeding program, there was a good working relationship between the teachers, parents and leadership in the schools. He adds that the district leadership also played a critical role in monitoring and supervision of school activities. //Cue in “Katakwi has actually… Cue out…especially first grades.”// Francis Akorikin, the Kapelebyong LCV Chairperson says that the results have energized the team to work harder for better results in the future. //Cue in “We have had… Cue out…in terms of testing.”// Over the years, Katakwi and Kapelebyong have been ranking among the worst performing districts in PLE across the country. In 2019, Kapelebyong was ranked the 123rd out 126 districts in 2019 PLE results. The district that had just been carved from Amuria managed to get only 17 candidates in first grade out of 1,698 candidates who registered and sat for the examination. In the same year, Katakwi was number 109 with only 55 candidates in first grade out of 2,440 registered candidates.