Browsing by Author "Nshemereirwe, Connie V."

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Characterising entrants into the University system in Uganda
(Association for Educational Assessment in Africa, 2011) Nshemereirwe, Connie V.
The Inter-University Council of East Africa, together with the National Higher Education Quality Assurance bodies of the East African countries, has been developing a joint quality assurance framework for Higher Education in the region. Among the objectives of this framework is improved student mobility, as well as bridging the gap between disparate educational systems. A key quality concern for Ugandan Higher Education is the validity of the scores from the high stakes Advanced Level examinations, upon which Universities largely base their admission. The study that I will report on is part of a wider PhD study investigating the predictive validity of the A-Level scores of entrants‟ success at University. I will focus on the preliminary study that seeks to characterise the University entrant in terms of their knowledge and skill base as reflected by their A-Level subject combinations and grades. The study was carried out at two public and six private universities in Uganda, and focused on three study programmes: Development Studies, Information Technology and Business Administration. The major outcome of this study is to identify the subjects that University entrants study at A-Level, and their scores in the final examination. This will form a basis for the follow-up study to determine the predictive validity of entry scores with relation to performance at University; this validity is expected to be variable, and my thesis is that it will depend greatly on the specific teaching and examination practices at the entrants‟ previous high schools; the follow-up study will focus on these schools.
Educating built environment professionals:
(Faculty of Building Technology and Architecture, 2006) Olweny, Mark R. O.; Nshemereirwe, Connie V.
In 2000, the Uganda Martyrs University introduced a new built environment program, a Bachelor of Science in Building Design and Technology (BSc BDT), marking the first time a private institution had entered the field of built environment education in Uganda. It was also the first new built environment program to be introduced in Uganda since the introduction - in 1989 - of the Bachelor of Architecture program at Makerere University. The BSc BDT program is directed at graduating young men and women who can fill a gap that exists between Architects and Engineers on the one hand, and Construction Workers/Artisans on the other. In addition it is intended that, the BSc BDT fulfils the prerequisite requirements for entry into a two-year graduate entry Bachelor of Architecture (BArch) professional degree. This represents the first time a two-tier architecture program has been offered in the East and Central African region. A central objective of the BSc BDT and the BArch programs is to train budding professionals in contemporary methods and practices in order to solve problems in the built environment. This paper outlines some of the issues that were faced during the development of the BSc BDT curricula, and in the implementation of a new integrated teaching and learning approach that emphasised Problem-Based-Learning (PBL). In addition, using examples derived from the experience of the authors, the paper will discuss some of the challenges and limitations faced by staff and students during the implementation of the initial program and during the change to PBL.
Estimating the difficulty of A'level examination subjects in Uganda
(University of Twente, The Netherlands, 2014) Nshemereirwe, Connie V.
In order to gain access to institutions of higher learning in Uganda, including universities, all students sit a national examination at the end of A’Level, the scores of which determine their selection into various institutions of higher learning, including university. For most university degree programmes, entry is determined based on the A’Level scores irrespective of subject, essentially implying that the same scores in the different subjects are comparable. In order to investigate this comparability, a generalised partial credit item response model was fit to the A’Level examination results data for the years 2009 and 2010. Science and non-science subjects were hypothesised to load on two separate dimensions of the latent ability scale, and subject difficulty and discrimination parameters were estimated. It was found that science subjects were relatively more difficult than humanities and language subjects, and that they also provided the largest amount of information, although this was for the higher end of the ability scale. Some other subjects like Art and Kiswahili were not only relatively easier, they also provided very little information on the ability scale underlying the other subjects. These findings bring into question the comparability of scores in the different subjects at A’Level, and if student ability based on examination performance can be better represented by integrating information on difficulty levels.
Investigating the variation in student performance in the A'level examinations in Uganda:
(University of Twente, The Netherlands, 2014) Nshemereirwe, Connie V.
Student performance in the A’Level national examinations in Uganda is the main criterion for selection for higher education, particularly university. About 2000 merit-based scholarships are available annually for the best performing applicants to public universities, but in recent years the majority of the recipients of these scholarships have come from only a handful of the best performing secondary schools in the country university. This reflects a wider issue of the widely differing quality of secondary schools in Uganda, and motivated the current study. In order to investigate the nature of the school effect within the A’Level performance, a multilevel modelling procedure was employed. Covering a period of five years (2005-2010), it was found that up to 30% of the variation in student performance at the end of A’Level could be attributed to the student’s A’Level school. Almost one quarter of this school effect was explained by four school characteristics: ownership, boarding status, gender ratio and whether it run the free universal secondary education (USE) programme. Of these, single-sex boarding schools that did not run the USE programme had the highest performance advantage. The performance advantages attributable to the type of school which students attend at A’Level can partly explain why the majority of students enrolled at universities in Uganda come from such a small proportion of secondary schools.
The relationship between pre-university schooling and university grades
(University of Twente, The Netherlands, 2014) Nshemereirwe, Connie V.
Universities are concerned with selecting students with the highest potential for successfully pursuing university education. For universities in Uganda, this potential is, apparently, sufficiently indicated by student performance in the national examinations at the end of the advanced level (A’Level) of secondary school. However, performance trends at A’Level indicate that there is a wide variation in performance between the different subjects offered at A’Level, as well as between different schools. Further, since the national examinations represent such high stakes, there are reports of a heavy emphasis on teaching and learning strategies aimed at maximising pass rates, which is further accompanied by a tendency to choose the A’Level subjects that consistently exhibit high pass rates. Since university selection depends almost solely on scores in the A’Level national examinations, it was of interest to investigate the extent to which these university entry scores predicted university grades after taking account of the various school and student level factors present in the pre-university schooling system. The main student level variables included in the study were student age and socioeconomic status (SES), while school level variables concerned ownership (public vs. private), gender balance (single-sex vs. coeducational), whether or not schools provided boarding facilities, and finally whether or not they run the Universal Secondary Education programme (USE). The USE is a government funded programme that provides tuition free education to students, and can be accessed at selected public and private secondary schools. The majority of university students in Uganda is enrolled at the country’s 5 public universities, with the largest public university accounting for about 30% of university enrolments nationwide. In the last 20 years, more than 30 private universities have also been established but these boast much lower enrolments, only accounting for 15% of total university enrolment (National Council for Higher Education, NCHE, 2013). Selection requirements at public and private universities are similar, but while selection into private universities is carried out at university level, selection into public universities is carried out jointly by a central body at the ministry of education. This is partly to facilitate the award of about 3,000 merit-based state sponsored scholarships which are only available to students enrolled at public universities. The availability of state scholarships at public universities has made entry highly competitive. Further, since the majority of prospective university students would like to be considered for these scholarships, the entry requirements for the academic programmes at public universities heavily influence subject choice at A’Level. The subject requirements and associated weighting for admission into the various academic programmes offered at public universities are published every year before students sit their A’Level examinations. Table 1 shows the entry requirements for some of the more selective and some of the less selective academic programmes offered at public universities. As can be seen, the more selective programmes like Telecom Engineering and Human Medicine have specific subject requirements, while programmes like Development Studies and Law have none at all.
Training for Real:
(2005) Nshemereirwe, Connie V.; Rugumayo, A. I.
Graduates of Engineering in Uganda face great challenges in the work place as they are expected to be fully prepared to start work with little or no further training. In view of this, training has to begin at the University, where it has been found that the quality of teaching is poor, by admission of the lecturers themselves. This paper reports on an initiative by Uganda Martyrs University to systematically analyse the nature of teaching in the Faculty of Building Design, and to design, develop, implement and evaluate an intervention in the form of training to equip lecturers with basic teaching skills. It is hoped that this will in turn increase the chances of students being trained for real.