PLE out: results of 909 candidates withheld

The Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Sports has released results of the 2015 Primary Living Examination (PLE). Results of 909 candidates have been withheld over suspected examination malpractice.

Education minister, Jessica Alupo, released the results in Kampala. "We reduced the number of withheld results from 1,344 in 2014 to 909," she said.

The minister said funding to special needs education is to increase to sh3.6b from sh3.1b in the next financial year. She said selection for senior one students will take place between January 28 & 29 at a venue to be announced by the ministry.

Entebbe, Kabale, Mbarara, Fort Portal and Mukono Municipalities registered lowest failure rates.

Result slips will be ready by end of February. District education officials were advised start picking results from UNEB headquarter on Tuesday.

According to Uganda National Examination Board (UNEB), a total of 621,454 candidates sat for the exams in November 2015 from 7,787 centres.

UNEB chairperson Prof. Mary Okwakol said the examination was leakage free but other forms of malpractice like external assistance and impersonation still existed.

UNEB Secretary Mathew Bukenya said boys performed better than girls in three subjects (mathematics, science and social studies). Girls outperformed boys in English.

Only 142, 816 candidates out of over 621,000 were from non-Universal Primary Education (UPE) schools.

A Primary Seven candidate is deemed to have passed the exams if they score between aggregate four and 28. To score aggregate four, a candidate must have got a distinction in all the four papers.

According to the 2016 schools calendar, Senior One students are supposed to report for first term on February 22 at the same time with continuing students.

To get PLE results by SMS type PLE, leave a space, Index number and send to 6600.

Get more detailed coverage of PLE stars, celebrations and pictures in Wednesday's New Vision.