The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has sounded an alarm after a significant number of Senior Four candidates risk being ungraded due to their schools’ failure to submit continuous assessment scores. Data from UNEB reveals that only 56% of the 4,166 O’ level examination centers have submitted the necessary scores.
This development is critical, given that the continuous assessment scores constitute 20% of the final grade under the new lower secondary school curriculum. The remaining 80% will be determined by a national examination administered by UNEB.
Approximately 100,000 candidates are estimated to be affected by this situation. UNEB Executive Director Dan Odongo has extended the submission deadline from September 30 to October 30, 2024, to provide schools with more time.
Odongo emphasized the importance of submitting CA scores online through the school portal, cautioning against physical delivery methods. He noted that UNEB has equipped schools with offline software and trained 15 teachers per school to facilitate the process.
The consequences of non-submission are severe, as candidates without CA scores will not receive grades. This means they will have to repeat Senior Four next year, even if they missed only one paper.
UNEB is set to administer four examinations this year. The schedule begins with UCE candidate briefing on October 11 for both new and old curriculum, followed by Primary Leaving Examinations on November 4 and Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education examinations on November 8.
Odongo addressed journalists at the Uganda Media Centre during the release of the UNEB time table for the 2024 examinations. He reiterated the importance of timely submission to avoid disenfranchising candidates.
The 2024 numbers
A total of 22,110 examination centres will have candidates this year. Of these, 15,311 have registered candidates for PLE, 4,166 for UCE and 2,633 for UACE.
A total of 1,320,400 candidates from the above centres have been registered for this year’s examinations, a 7.8% increase compared to last year’s candidature of 1,224,371.
Of the total candidature, 51.1% are females while 48.9% are males.
A total of 369,477 candidates will write exams under the NLSC whereas 10,143 are repeaters who will write a transitional examination based on the old curriculum.
UNEB registered a significant increase in candidature at UACE with 142,017 candidates this year compared to 110,579 in 2023.
In addition, at PLE, there was a 6.6% increment in candidates from 749,371 in 2023 to 798,763 this year.
The number of Special Needs (SNE) candidates increased from 3,698 candidates in 2023 to 4,498 this year.
Of the total SNE candidates, 3,295 will write PLE, 760 registered for UCE- NLSC whereas 38 will write the transitional UCE- old curriculum.
There are 405 SNE candidates who registered for UACE this year.
According to UNEB data, the Luzira Upper and Mbarara Main prisons have registered a total of 108 Candidates for PLE, 39 for UCE.
Of the total candidature, 53% are funded by the Government under the universal education programmes while 47% are privately sponsored.
New examinable subjects
This year, under the NLSC, UNEB will set exams for a total of 36 subjects down from 46 subjects under the old curriculum.
There are new subjects and assessment modalities that will be examinable for the first time by UNEB.
This year, UNEB will examine learners for the Ugandan Sign Language (USL) with a total of 72 pioneer candidates, eight of whom are hearing learners.
In addition, Physical Education will be examined with a total candidature of 15,000 registered in 1,341 centres.
“In terms of assessment modalities, the board will assess learners’ achievements in listening and speaking for two of the foreign languages- Latin and Arabic,” Odongo said.
Adding that, “These were previously examined by only pen and paper. The other foreign languages will still be assessed in listening and speaking, with emphasis on the principles of fairness and evidence based assessment.”
A total of 4, 490 candidates have registered for the foreign languages including French, Arabic, Latin, German, and Chinese.
A total of 11 local languages will be assessed: Luganda, Lusoga, Runyo/Rutoro, Runyankore/Rukiga, Lumasasba, Ateso, Lugbara Ti, Leb Lango, Leb Acoli, and Dhopadhola and the USL.
Why schools have delayed
Didas Orikiriza, the executive director of National Private Education Institutions Association (NPEIA), largely blamed the delay by some schools on lack of training to assess and score learners’ achievements in schools.
“We have been telling you that schools are not prepared. The challenges that you see now are historical. They should have trained teachers from the start on the handling of the continuous assessment. It was never done,” he said.
“There was also confusion from the responsible institutions. The National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC) developed a different criteria to assess learners. UNEB also came with a different assessment criteria, which was even late. Of course all these have an impact on schools,” he said.
However, he also blamed the delay on private schools which are yet to receive centre numbers.
Having collected the data earlier, Orikiriza said, schools under this category had to submit the learners’ data to new schools with UNEB center numbers.
The tabulation of the data into the new schools, he said, has also been tedious and thus delaying the sending of the continuous assessment scores by certain schools.
“It very tedious to transfer a learner from one school to another. Now you need the learners’ identification numbers, which are interlinked with the UNEB data. All these have an impact on the speed within which schools send data to UNEB,” he said.
Hajjat Zulaika Nabukeera, the general secretary of the Association of Secondary Schools Headteachers of Uganda (ASSHU) blamed the delay in submitting the learners’ school scores on requirements by UNEB.
“If you recall, schools were required to submit the continuous assessment for both Senior Three and Senior Four classes of 2024. The exercise was big because you handled one student at a time and per subject. There are schools with huge enrollment and many could not beat the deadline,” she said.
However, Nabukeera, who doubles as the Headteacher for Nabisunsa Girls’ School in Kampala, said the extension of the deadline will enable schools that have not submitted, to do so.
UNEB timetable
PLE exams will run for two days from November 6-7, UCE old curriculum will run for 26 days from October 14 to November 15, 2024 whereas UCE-NLSC will run for 20 days from October 14 to November 8, 2024.
On the other hand, the UACE exams will run for 20 days from November 11 to December 6, 2024.
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