With just a few days for Primary Seven candidates to sit for their Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) , Uganda national examinations board has issued more guidelines in a bid to fight examination malpractices.
This year the candidates will only write their names and code numbers for schools on their examination papers but not the names of the schools in order to make it a little more difficult for those who would like to manipulate the results according to Dan Odong the executive secretary UNEB.
Odong says that some markers have been easily identifying the students they need to favor from the names of the schools written on the examination papers and this will increase the integrity of the examinations.
PLE will be done on November 5th and 6th, and the candidates will start with Mathematics in the morning of November 5th and do Social Studies in the afternoon. Morning papers shall start at 9.00 am while
those in the afternoon shall commence at 2.00 PM On November 6th, candidates shall sit for the Science paper in the morning and then English in the afternoon.
The examination body has other guidelines which the schools and candidates need to follow in order not to be disqualified or that can led to the cancellation of the entire results.
Smuggling of unauthorized material inside the examination room, copying from one another or collusion, external assistance given by teachers, supervisors, invigilators and any other persons, prior knowledge of examination questions (leakage), impersonation (i.e. hiring somebody else to sit the examination,another person, rather than the duly registered candidate sitting the examination , improper behavior e.g. making noise, disobeying, threatening and attacking scouts, Supervisors, Invigilators etc.
English and Mathematics were worst done subjects as per 2017 results, and schools from the eastern region registered a high failure rate by the candidates.
Leaders from the worst performing districts such as Manafwa have given Numerous reasons for the performance including erratic transfer of teachers, interference of politicians and laxity of parents.
The teachers are accusing several politicians, with no experience in the education sector, of punishing them unnecessarily, as , Several parents in Manafwa agreed that they haven't been hard on their
children encouraging an attitude of laxity.