With just two weeks remaining until final examination for pioneer students studying under the new lower secondary curriculum, thousands of candidates from over 2,096 examination centers are at risk of not being graded, even if they turn up for the examinations.
This stems from the failure of their respective schools to submit continuous assessment and project scores to the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB).
Under the revised lower secondary curriculum, UNEB’s End of Cycle assessment accounts for 80 percent of a learner’s overall grade. The remaining 20 percent comes from the Continuous Assessment and project work conducted at the school level.
Dan Odongo, UNEB’s Executive Director, said that according to the curriculum guidelines, no student can be graded let alone be awarded certificate unless their Continuous Assessment scores are submitted. He urged parents and students to verify with schools that these scores have been sent to UNEB on time to avoid complications.
While UNEB is urging schools to submit continuous assessment and project scores, they have declined to share the number of candidates affected by this situation. The officer, whom the Executive Director directed to provide this information, noted that she could not share this “sensitive data” and only mentioned that 56 centers have submitted their scores so far.
Given that there are 4,752 centers, this means UNEB has received scores from approximately 2,653 centers, leaving about 2,096 centers that have not yet submitted their scores. The number of centres point to the fact that over and above half of the registered candidates have not had their scores submitted.
According to the schedule, the deadline for submitting Continuous Assessment scores was September 30. However, Odongo said that they have decided to extended the deadline by one month up to October 30 to give heads of centers more time to submit the scores. He called on the heads of centers to ensure that the scores are submitted without further delay.
“Heads of UCE Centres MUST ensure that the project achievement and the CA scores for UCE candidates of the NLSC are submitted to UNEB before the new set deadline of October 30th, 2024,” said Odongo. “It is important to note that candidates without project work as well as CA scores in any of the subjects offered shall not be graded.”
Through several interviews, URN has found that the delay in submitting scores is largely due to UNEB’s failure to establish in time a system to manage the process. For example, schools with UNEB centers in Central Uganda have not yet received the necessary training on how to properly capture and submit the scores data with UNEB.
Odongo acknowledged this fact and noted that UNEB is currently finalizing the pending training in areas where they have not been conducted yet. he however added that UNEB has provided each school with a CD containing offline software for capturing candidates’ continuous assessment scores, which can later be submitted online.
The executive director further added that schools must not deliver coursework assessment marks physically, by post, or by courier, as these will not be accepted.
Source: URN