PLE: Boys ‘outsmart’ girls, but exam malpractice on the rise

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Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports Janet Museveni has directed that all schools maintain the fees charged from last term, as government prepares to come out with a position before term starts next week. She said this today while releasing the long-awaited 2022 Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE).

“This week on Monday, we sought Cabinet’s guidance on this issue of fees. Cabinet has guided that all schools maintain the fees structure for third term of 2022 as we await further guidance on the matter,” she said.

In the PLE results released by the Uganda National Examination Board (UNEB), more children qualified to join post primary schools; boys performed better than girls, and,  there was an improvement in English and Maths results.

According to the results summary, more candidates obtained Division 1 and Division 2 than in 2020. The overall pass levels are comparable between the two years.

In terms of numbers, 714,702 candidates passed the PLE compared to 659,910 the previous year.  Overall, therefore, more pupils qualify to join the post-primary institutions than the previous year.

“We are all grateful to God for the fact that registration for the PLE in 2022, increased by a larger percentage than ever before, despite the fears voiced by many, over the possible massive drop-outs of the learners, due to the circumstances prevailing at the time,” said First Lady Janet Museveni.

(CLICK TO READ >> 2022 PLE – STATEMENT OF RELEASE OF RESULTS)

UNEB Executive Direcor Dan Odongo outlined the highlights of the results, saying examination practices are yet to be rooted out. He announced that they are looking at new policy that will hand out harsher punishments to culprits.

“Scouts and examiners reported a number of cases of suspected external assistance rendered to candidates by third parties inside the examination rooms and smuggling of information relevant to the examination by some of the candidates,” Odongo said.

He revealed that security also arrested some distributors and teachers who cut open question paper envelopes in order to access question papers in the districts of Mukono, Gomba, Mpigi  and the greater Masaka areas. A number of these have been arrested and charged in Courts of Law under the relevant sections of the  UNEB Act, 2021.

Minister Janet Museveni later warned, “Please know that it will not be business as usual now that the UNEB Act of 2021, provides for punitive action for those found guilty of participating in, and condoning this practice. ”

PLE was conducted on November 8th and 9th, 2022, with a total of 832,810 candidates registered from 14,153 examination centers. Of these, 51.9 percent of the total registered candidates were females and 48.1 percent were males. Of these, 583,769 were funded under the Universal Primary Education-UPE program, and 249,041 were non-UPE candidates.

Marking PLE ended before Christmas. Marking took place at 13 centers involving 5,544 examiners.

The Selection Exercise for Senior One will be held on February 2 and 3, 2023 at the Uganda Manufacturers Association (UMA) Exhibition Hall.  The date for reporting to school for Senior one will be February 20, 2023.

While selections will be going on, the future looks bleak for over 97,000 pupils who fell in the very last category of grades.

“Division U (Ungraded) is awarded to candidates who have failed to reach the minimum level of performance that can be awarded at least a Division 4. Such candidates should not be admitted to Senior One, but should repeat as they will not be eligible to register for the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) examination later,” ED Odongo said.

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