UNEB Explains S4 Exams Mess
THE mess in Wednesday’s literature paper was caused by the Uganda National Examinations Board’s (uneb) failure to rid their data bank of obsolete questions.
By John Eremu
THE mess in Wednesday’s literature paper was caused by the Uganda National Examinations Board’s (uneb) failure to rid their data bank of obsolete questions.
UNEB secretary Matthew Bukenya said yesterday the strict measures introduced to curb examination leakages could have been responsible for the error.
He said questions for the national examinations were randomly picked from a question bank and less than three people scrutinise them.
“Since we took over office in 1996, we have reduced the number of people who look at the papers,†Bukenya said.
“It is only one or two people who see the papers before going into the printery. One person picks the questions from the question bank and he or she does not even look at them. Another person then proof-reads and even the printers don’t look at the questions,†Bukenya explained.
UNEB was on Wednesday forced to cancel literature paper 208/1 after the questions were set from books dropped from the syllabus two years back.
Bukenya said thousand of questions are set and stored in the question bank and the person who picked the literature set could have landed his or her hands on questions from the old set of textbooks.
He, however, said there was no crisis in the conduct of the examinations since fresh papers had already been printed for the 7,104 candidates.
“We are only waiting for a feedback from the schools on the suitable date when the paper can be done,†Bukenya said.
State minister for higher education Betty Aketch yesterday told journalists that they were investigating the source of the error.
Akech, who was launching the proposed students loan scheme, asked students and parents to remain calm as the matter was being handled.
The director for education, Sam Onek, was due to meet UNEB board members yesterday over the issue.
Aketch and Onek said security had been beefed up in the north where rebels on Wednesday abducted an examination supervisor in Pader and seized practical papers for the Uganda Junior Technical examinations.
“What happened in Pader was a little bit extra-ordinary. We got assurance that security would be beefed up and all the technical staff would move with security throughout the conduct of the exams,†Onek said. Ends
THE mess in Wednesday’s literature paper was caused by the Uganda National Examinations Board’s (uneb) failure to rid their data bank of obsolete questions.
UNEB secretary Matthew Bukenya said yesterday the strict measures introduced to curb examination leakages could have been responsible for the error.
He said questions for the national examinations were randomly picked from a question bank and less than three people scrutinise them.
“Since we took over office in 1996, we have reduced the number of people who look at the papers,†Bukenya said.
“It is only one or two people who see the papers before going into the printery. One person picks the questions from the question bank and he or she does not even look at them. Another person then proof-reads and even the printers don’t look at the questions,†Bukenya explained.
UNEB was on Wednesday forced to cancel literature paper 208/1 after the questions were set from books dropped from the syllabus two years back.
Bukenya said thousand of questions are set and stored in the question bank and the person who picked the literature set could have landed his or her hands on questions from the old set of textbooks.
He, however, said there was no crisis in the conduct of the examinations since fresh papers had already been printed for the 7,104 candidates.
“We are only waiting for a feedback from the schools on the suitable date when the paper can be done,†Bukenya said.
State minister for higher education Betty Aketch yesterday told journalists that they were investigating the source of the error.
Akech, who was launching the proposed students loan scheme, asked students and parents to remain calm as the matter was being handled.
The director for education, Sam Onek, was due to meet UNEB board members yesterday over the issue.
Aketch and Onek said security had been beefed up in the north where rebels on Wednesday abducted an examination supervisor in Pader and seized practical papers for the Uganda Junior Technical examinations.
“What happened in Pader was a little bit extra-ordinary. We got assurance that security would be beefed up and all the technical staff would move with security throughout the conduct of the exams,†Onek said. Ends