By THE OBSERVER UG
Education minister Janet Museveni releasing the PLE exam results
All candidates who failed the 2023 Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) will be allowed to repeat primary seven in all public schools, first lady and minister of Education and Sports, Janet Museveni, has said.
Speaking at the release of the PLE results at State House Nakasero today, Museveni said it is unfair for candidates who do not qualify for PLE certificates to drop out of the education cycle at this level.
Any candidate who falls under Division U (ungraded) is not eligible for admission for senior one, according to the Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb). The released results indicate that a higher proportion of the 2023 candidates failed to reach the minimum level of performance that can be awarded at least Division four (DIV 4).
“As the government, we need to provide a pathway of hope to these learners. I have instructed the permanent secretary [ministry of Education] to communicate to the respective accounting officers in local governments that such learners be accorded an opportunity to repeat P7 in all public primary schools,” Museveni said.
She added: “The teachers and parents should work hard with these children to better their grades to a level where they can qualify for various opportunities of education beyond primary seven.”
In 2007, the government launched an automatic promotion policy for learners under Universal Primary Education (UPE) and Universal Secondary Education (USE) to progress from one class to another without considering the quality of their performance.
The policy has however in the past been widely criticized by educationists including head teachers and teachers but public schools continued to implement it.
Irked by the high failure rate this year – though it dropped from 12.0 per cent to 10.4 per cent in 2022 and 2023 respectively, Museveni said her ministry is going to embark on a comprehensive review of the automatic promotion policy.
“It is a disservice to move a learner to the next level when you as a teacher or head teacher, you very well know that the child has not demonstrated minimum mastery of the appropriate knowledge and skills in the previous class,” she said.
Museveni tasked the Directorate of Education Standards to work with the district education officers to ensure that capacity is built in all schools to utilize formative assessments. She insisted that promoting a learner to the next class “simply because the year has come to an end is a disservice to that child, to education, and the country.”
GENERAL PERFORMANCE
The 2023 examinations were conducted smoothly between November 7 and 8. Some 749,254 candidates from 15,859 centres registered for the exams compared to 832,654 in 2022 – representing a decrease of 83,400 (10 per cent) candidates. Of the total candidature, 357,755 (47.7 per cent) were boys compared to 391,499 (52.25 per cent) girls. This has been the trend in the last seven years, and the gap has been slowly widening.
While presenting the statement of results, the Uneb executive director, Dan N. Odongo, said that a higher proportion of the candidates passed in Division three and above.
“Overall, the performance of 2023 candidates is comparable to that of 2022,” Odongo said.
He, however, noted that the number of candidates in Division U is quite high at 88,256 (10.4%). He said this should raise concern amongst educationists so that this does not just add to the statistics of the country’s school dropouts.
Kibuku (31.5 per cent), Madi Okollo (31.5 per cent), Dokolo (28.9 per cent), Kween (28.4 per cent), and Namisindwa with 28.9 per cent have been listed as the districts with the highest failure rates with many of their candidates in Division U – well above the national average.
“It is necessary to find out the causes of the low performance and address them. Uneb examiners have compiled a report on the work of the work of candidates to advice teachers on how to handle the areas of weaknesses. Teachers are urged to utilize this report,” Odongo said.
At the subject level, overall, performance was slightly better in English, Integrated Science, and Mathematics. There was a decrease in performance in Social Studies. Female students performed better than their male counterparts in English, but the reverse is true for the other three subjects.
SPECIAL CANDIDATE GROUPS
In a bid to rehabilitate incarcerated offenders, Uneb maintained an examination centre at the Uganda Government Upper Prison School, Luzira. Out of the 69 registered candidates, only 60 sat for the PLE exams. Of these, two passed in Division One, 32 obtained Division Two, 15 passed in Division Three, five in Division Four while six were ungraded.
Some 2,436 learners with Special Needs of various categories registered but 46 missed the examinations. Odongo noted that the deaf – with the highest number of ungraded candidates – are the most affected by their form of disability compared to others. The board has taken an interest in this category and will carry out an analysis of the trends of their performance for possible solutions.
The partially blind candidates had the highest number of candidates passing in Division One at 70. They are followed by the dyslexics and those needing transcribers with 49, and the physically handicapped and blind with one candidate each in the first division. There was no deaf candidate in division one out of the 270 who sat for the 2023 PLE examinations.
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