Uneb introduces new system to grade schools

Value. Students sit Uganda Certificate of Education exams at Kakungulu Memorial School Kibuli last year. Uneb will start grading secondary schools basing on value addition next year. PHOTO BY ABUBAKER LUBOWA

What you need to know:

  • Uneb has promised to cancel results of those who will be caught in examination malpractices while they will withdraw centre numbers from schools which will be involved in this vice.
  • To the guardians who have not cleared their children’s school fees, Uneb executive secretary, Mr Daniel Nokrach Odongo asked them to negotiate with the school authorities so that candidates are not disrupted in case they are denied access to the examination rooms.

KAMPALA. The Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) will, beginning next year, start grading secondary schools according to the value they have added on their students.
The Uneb executive secretary, Mr Daniel Nokrach Odongo, on Thursday said the school effectiveness measure they have introduced will compare secondary schools to see how much progress students have made from the time they joined in Senior One to the time they leave at Senior Four.

Here, the examining body will look at the aggregate a pupil scored in Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) and compare them with the scores they get in Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE).

“The new measure will take into account the grades a child attained in P7 and those in S4 and the performance of all candidates. It will recognise every school according to the effort they have put. Some schools have admitted students in third or fourth grades at P7. At the end of four years in secondary, if such a child gets a second grade, the school will have definitely added value to this student,” Mr Odongo said.
He said Uneb will be using a metric to measure performance of individuals and schools.

The system will track the scores at PLE, UCE and UACE and use them to rate the value a school would have added on their students.
In the past, schools have been rated according to the number of candidates they got in Division One. To Mr Odongo, this only reflects the ability of the schools’ intake more than the quality of their teaching. He added that the old system also encourages schools to focus on brilliant students at the expense of low performing learners.

UCE exams
Mr Odongo made the announcement on Thursday to journalists ahead of UCE exams, which start today with the briefing. A total of 1,073,715 candidates have registered for this year’s PLE, UCE and Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) compared with last year’s 1,068,224 students. At least 326, 149 Senior Four students will sit the month-long UCE examinations that will begin with Physics practicals and Art on Monday. The government programme, Universal Secondary Education (USE) has registered 151,894 candidates, representing 46.6 per cent of the students sitting UCE.

The board has appealed to parents to appear for briefing with their students so that they can learn what they are expected of during this period.
To the guardians who have not cleared their children’s school fees, Mr Odongo asked them to negotiate with the school authorities so that candidates are not disrupted in case they are denied access to the examination rooms.

“If a parent has a problem of paying fees, it’s better for them to negotiate with the schools. Some parents think because they have paid Uneb registration fees, they can refuse to pay the school dues. This is not right. You should know that these schools have incurred some expenses to have your child in school all this time,” Mr Odongo noted.

Caution
Uneb has promised to cancel results of those who will be caught in examination malpractices while they will withdraw centre numbers from schools which will be involved in this vice.