Cheating is to blame for parents’ frustration with poor PLE grades

Social media and social gatherings are abuzz with disappointment over last 2018 Primary Leaving Examination (PLE) results. Some parents and school administrators are even threatening to petition Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) to do a thorough audit of the marking and grading of the PLE results. The Daily Monitor of January 20 quoting Dr Roy Mayega’s post on social media, under the headline ‘Uneb accused of undermining top schools,’ summarises the frustrations of many parents, teachers and candidates, who sat PLE.

Briefly, Dr Mayega alleges that Uneb has a policy of under marking top schools in Kampala like Green Hill Academy, City Parents School, Kampala Parents School, Kabojja Primary School, etc. He also alleges that Uneb has a different grading system for urban schools and village schools that disadvantages urban schools leave alone the fact that many urban schools though relatively unknown, especially in Kampala, Mukono, and Wakiso, still performed extremely well.

To beat the alleged Uneb unfair system, the writer suggests that parents will start registering their kids in village schools for better grades.

I can understand the frustration of the writer and the stakeholders of the traditional top schools in Kampala. They are not alone. Even other top schools in Mbarara, Jinja, Gulu, Fort Portal and elsewhere underperformed compared to their relatively little unknown counterparts. Those frustrated and complaining are mainly schools where parents pay high fees for the highest quality of teaching and learning. They are excellent schools with excellent facilities, teachers and administrators. But why do I think the writer bases on false arguments to make a point?

I have interacted with examiners who mark PLE exams. They are trained teachers from all over the country. When these teachers are marking, they can’t tell which school they are handling. The grading system is also done uniformly after the completion of marking and is guided by performance of all candidates’ countrywide. For instance, I was told this time round, for one to have attained distinction 1 (D1), a candidate had to score 95 per cent and that for the first time applied to all the four subjects of English, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies. And for distinction 2 (D2), a candidate must have scored 90- 94 per cent.

I am an educationist in my own right. I own one of the top primary schools in a rural setting– Rwebiita Preparatory School in Sheema District. I have also been a senior academic and administrator at some of our top universities in Uganda. I have fairly observed what is transpiring in our examination system and it is sickening.

The main problem is cheating exams at all levels. The credibility exams in Uganda is at stake. In some schools and higher institutions of learning, cheating has been an open secret for many years. The schools in Kampala and elsewhere that are unhappy with the PLE results probably have genuine results in light of the fact they never cheated.

I can imagine that they were affected by the alleged massive cheating of exams countrywide to the extent that Uneb upped their grading scale to accommodate very good marks to what many call “artificial or fake grades”. They should, therefore, not worry much and continue doing what they do right. Galatians 6: 9 says “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

For starters, it is easy scientifically to tell that cheating of many schools countrywide could be the reason why the previously top schools underperformed in relation to the recently released PLE results than the alleged discrimination by Uneb to favour rural schools as others would want us to believe. Many districts centralise mock exams done by both public and private schools as a practice for future exams, especially PLE administered by Uneb. These district mock exams are done three months before Uneb exams. It is highly unlikely that schools cheat at mock because it is just a preparation for the main national and promotional exam to another educational level.

A statistical comparison of the district mock results and PLE results can reveal quite a lot. In Sheema and Bushenyi, the districts that I am familiar with, my analysis show that mock grades/results as compared to the Uneb PLE grades for a good number of schools jumped for the better three or more times in a just a space of three months.

This finding suggests the gains may not have been due to learning per say, but through other means. This is especially so since there are other schools who maintained almost the same level of academic performance in PLE as compared to the district/municipality mock exams. It is most probable that these category of schools were not involved in exam malpractices and they are the ones casting doubt on the integrity of the 2018 PLE results.

I talked to a head teacher who was pleasantly surprised by her pupils PLE results. Any teacher worth his or her title should not be surprised by the performance of her students, especially if he or she has been directly involved in preparing students for the national promotional exam. It is difficult to fathom a student who has been averaging 25 aggregates from Primary Six, including scores from the district administered mock and P7 promotional exams, to score 9 or 10 aggregates in a Uneb set exam.

There can be exceptions due to certain factors, but not hundreds across different schools. These are unusual score jumps. Cheating is one of few plausible explanations why scores would change so dramatically for so many students in a district. And why Uneb was not able to detect such leaves many to wonder.

Not many Ugandans will come out to challenge Uneb results publicly because we are docile. Thus, we become ‘accomplices’ in such illegal acts. Uneb has to style and engage citizens to condemn and report cases of cheating for students, else we are doomed as a country. Examination cheating has become more sophisticated and ‘democratised’ in some way.

The technological revolution has come with the negative effect of easy circulation of Uneb exams from urban areas to the rural areas. I was told that PLE were all over on social media, especially WhatsApp and Facebook, and many school administrators accessed them except for those who didn’t want. This coupled with failure for area supervisors and invigilators to be vigilant has enabled schools to take advantage and cheat for their schools. It should also be noted that in the past, there were not so many private schools in rural areas, but now there is cut-throat competition for students and school directors most of them business people who are more determined than ever to have their schools recognised as the best in the districts.

Even when Uneb bans teaching during the exam time, it is an open secret that most schools continue teaching up to the late hours in the morning. Uneb is slowly losing credibility because of exam fraud.

Dr Rwebiita is the director of Rwebiita Preparatory School in Sheema Municipality, Sheema District. [email protected]