Should UNEB set tougher exams?

By Carol Natukunda
A PROPOSAL that Uganda national examinations should be set harder than they have been, generated a heated debate at the just concluded assessment conference of examination experts across Africa.
the 23rd Annual Conference of the Association for Educational Assessment in Africa (AEAA) on the theme: ‘Enhancing the Quality of Education Through Assessment’ was organised by UNEB at Speke Resort Munyoyo.
While most of the foreign participants argued that the examinations were already hard enough, given the students’ different backgrounds, David Were, the head of continuous assessment at the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB), said setting hard exams would make students set higher goals.
“Because exams are being used for selection and certification, it’s crucial to set them harder so that students work towards higher and better goals. Public exams can tell what the students are able to do,” Were said.
According to him, questions were a practical assessment, which acts as stimuli, triggering off responses and reactions from the examinees. This, he added, would keep students on their toes since the public would constantly measure their capabilities.
“If exams seem to be easier, they become a common thing. But if they are tough, they set higher standards and students get satisfaction after they have struggled and excelled.”
Were further said, “If you are in a race, it has to be a competitive one. But if it is a cheap race, chances are that no one will take part.”
Prof. Frederick Kayanja, vice chancellor of Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST), said many people are increasingly of the view that exams should be made more difficult. He said it was more worrying to have many students with excellent passes.
He said in such cases, assessment would always be difficult “because we can’t withstand the God-given strength.”
Kayanja, who is also the chairman of the National Council for Higher Education, said a lot of information was available today than there was in the past. He said this enables students to excel in exams today than they would in the past.
He questioned the rationale for having many excellent passes yet there are limited places at post primary and secondary institutions.
Some experts disagreed with the school of thought that the current exams should be made difficult.
Teachers and students interviewed by Education Vision said the objective of any examination is to assess the level of knowledge. They said setting tough exams would defeat the primary purpose of education. They further said the Government should instead expand capacity at various learning levels to absorb the increasing number of students.
“If you begin setting examinations that are difficult, you would be using exams as punishment for candidates. In this way, exams will lose meaning,” Jackson Ojok of Namirembe Hillside High School, said.

A UNEB source said the pass rate of Uganda national exams is on average between 39% and 41.4% for girls and boys respectively, which is low.
William Turyatemba of Mengo senior secondary school, says exams are supposed to test what is laid down in the syllabus irrespective of whether it is simple or tough.
“What would be the purpose of setting a difficult exam?” he asked.
“Is it to fail everybody or to equip those who are learning with concepts and skills, which can enable them live on their own?” Turyamureba said.
He further said exams are supposed to determine the extent to which each child can handle a difficult task.
“We teach the syllabus and we examine the students on the syllabus. Sometimes, students perform poorly. And if it’s the case, we determine what was the cause for the failure. If it’s a question of a difficult topic, we try to handle it individually and then they are able to improve.”
Mary Muddu, a teacher at Kings College Budo, says examinations should by all standards be fair.
“They should not be harder or easier for any reason. Exams should measure the quality of students rather than looking at how we can fit them into the available slots. I don’t think the present examinations are really easy,” Muddu says.
Dr. Chrysostom Muyingo, the head-teacher of Uganda Martyrs Secondary School Namugongo, says he does not believe in the thinking of educating to eliminate. “Instead of testing to see how much has been gained, you are testing to fail, which defeats the whole purpose of education,” Muyingo said.
Ssebbunga Masembe, a lecturer at Makerere University School of Education, said what mattered at the end of the day, was to ensure that questions or statements did not have ambiguity, but relevancy to different specifications.

Students say examinations have never been easy and making them harder would lead to more stress.
“If I am already ‘cutting winter’ (reading in the middle of the night) preparing for exams, does that mean I should on this turn be prepared never to sleep at all? Exams are already hard enough, and that is why I forego my sleep for books. It’s not that I enjoy sitting in class during a chilling night,” says Richard Kaggwa, a student at Standard high school, Kampala. “I sat for my A’ level twice because I did not perform well first time. Does this not explain that the exams are difficult? If they were simple, I would have passed the first time,” said a student who sat for his A’level twice.
Parents and guardians say the idea of setting difficult exams would be unfair to their children. Basil Ndyayeta, a retired revenue officer and a father of eight, says by the time two of his children went abroad to study, they had struggled more than enough.
He said his worry was whether other children would also get a chance to do so if exams were made tough.
“In this modern era, we educate for the global village and not for Uganda per se. If my child failed because exams have been made difficult, then it would seem like shutting them out from the rest of the world,” Ndyayeta says.
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