By Jumah Kakomo
The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) officially released the 2023 Examination time tables for the primary leaving examination (PLE), Uganda Certificate of education (UCE) and the Uganda advanced certificate of education (UACE) Examinations.
The timetable were released on Wednesday at Uganda media center Kampala by the board executive director Dan Odongo saying this year’s national examinations will commence on Friday October 13th, with the briefing of UCE candidates . The first papers will be Geography on October 16, 2023. The UCE examination will run until November 17, 2023. The second series if the examinations is the PLE which will be conducted from November 7th-9th, 2023, starting with the briefing of the candidates. The 3rd and final set of the examinations, UACE, will be conducted from November 10- December 1, 2023.
Odongo advised heads of centers to ensure that every candidate receives a copy of the time table, and that the same is also displayed on the school notice boards.
“Centre heads can access the time tables from their portals. Hard copies will also be provided along with the other stationery, which will be distributed from Monday September 11th, 2023,”Odongo added.
Odongo says Braille versions of the UCE and UACE time tables have also been provided for special needs education (SNE) candidates with visual impairment.
Odongo noted that Candidates and all those concerned must take special note of the sections on directions to candidates, and caution against malpractice in or around the examination room. These have clearly spelt out the instructions that candidates must follow and cases of examination malpractice that can lead to disqualification, cancellation of results or arrest of a candidate.
“The candidates must further note that involment in malpractice in one paper shall lead to cancellation of entire results of the examination,”Odongo added.
He further encouraged parents to equally take keen interest in the precautions highlighted on the timetable, and counsel the learners accordingly. Head teachers must use the time table and other documents supplied by UNEB to thoroughly brief candidates. Evidence from past examinations indicates that a lot of candidates whose results have been withheld or cancelled were often those who were not briefed by the headteachers.
“Schools should ma effective use of the remaining time to provide the required academic guidance and teaching , so as to avoid the temptation to indulge in malpractice,” Odongo said.
*DISPLAY OF CANDIDATES’ REGISTER (AUGUST 14-OCTOBER 13, 2023)*
The UNEB Act 2021, Article 4, sub-section 2, compels examination centre to display candidates’ lists, sixty days before the date for the commencement of the national examinations. Accordingly, with effect from August 14th, 2023, Heads of centers were asked to display the candidates’ registers in a conspicuous place at the school notice boards. The purpose of the display is to enable candidates to confirm registration status as well as the correctness of their bio-data.
Odongo says candidates should look out for correctness of names as well as the order of names, date of birth, gender, resolution of the candidates’photography, as well as the subject and papers registered for in the case of UCE and UACE candidates. After conforming registration status, candidates should sign on a parallel register to confirm correctness of the registration data. Where anomalies in the candidate’s bio data are found, candidates should inform the school authorities, who shall alert UNEB for correction of the variance.
*CANDIDATURE*
According to Odongo, a total of one million, two hundred twenty-four thousand, three hundred seventy-one (1,224,371) candidates have registered for all the three levels of the final examinations, from 20,921 centers. Of the total candidates, 51% are females, while 49% are males.
He says they have recorded a percentage increase of 12,690 (13.5%) at UACE level, that is a total of 110,579 candidates this year, as compared to 97,889 last year. At UCE level, there is a percentage increase of 14,988 (4.3%) in candidature, from 349,433 to 364,421 candidates this year. There is, however, a drop of 83,438 (10%) in the candidature at PLE level, from 832,809 last year to 749,371 this year.
According to Odongo, of the entire candidature, 3,698 are Special Needs Education (SNE) learners , as compared to 3,400 of last year. Of the SNE candidates, 2,436 are PLE candidates, 721 are UCE, while 242 are UACE candidates.
“In terms of funding, 645,191 (53%) of the total candidature are funded by the government, while 579,180 (47%) of the candidates are privately sponsored,”Odongo said.
*The new lower secondary school curriculum (NLSC)*
Odongo says the board is steadily preparing for the assessment of learners under the new lower secondary school curriculum. While the actual examination under this curriculum will take place next year, 2024, preparations are coming.
“We have just completed a countrywide pre-test items, and are currently analyzing the outcome,”Odongo added.
He says the pretest exercise was conducted in 220 schools and involved 6,000 students. During the pretest, the board interacted with the learners of senior Three (the class that did the pretest) and collected valuable insights from the students. Views of teachers are also being collected. These , and the analysis of the results of the pretest will inform the Board’e decisions on the final paper formats. At the appropriate time, the board will distribute sample examination papers to all schools to acquiant themselves with the questions and formats and guide the learners accordingly.
He says, for continuous assessment scores, schools and the respective subject teachers are informed that the board will soon issue the project work assessment framework that will guide the assessment of project work and submission of scores to UNEB.
