UNEB’s Bukenya promises fraud-free examinations
Oct 30, 2009
THIS year, the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has put up stringent measures to curb examination leakages and other malpractices.
By Chris Kiwawulo
THIS year, the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has put up stringent measures to curb examination leakages and other malpractices.
The body now vows to pull off a fraud-free examination, better than has been seen in recent history.
According to Matthew Bukenya, UNEB’s Executive Secretary, these measures are already working very well because he has not received cases of malpractices since O’ level exams began on October 16.
The total number of candidates sitting Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) as well as Ordinary and Advanced Level exams this year are 831,927. Of these, 516,890 are sitting PLE, 217,358 O’ Level and 97,679, A’ Level.
PLE started with briefing yesterday and the first exam is on Monday November 2. The S.4 national examinations began on October 16 and Senior Six exams will commence on November 6.
Zero tolerance
In an exclusive interview with Saturday Vision, Bukenya assured Ugandans of a different story from this year onwards.
“I personally sleep after midnight everyday during this period because I have to monitor a lot of things right from printing to transportation of the papers.
“During the day, I go to the field to monitor the administration of the exams. This year, we took on a theme: ‘demonstrating care for quality assessment,’ as a way of improving our operations,†Bukenya said.
This year’s examination season has been declared a zero-tolerance one. Previously, UNEB exams were marred by incompetent organisation, leakage of papers, impersonation and conflict, as centres were cancelled.
Last year in Bugiri district, schools got partially blank question papers. Kawo Kawere Nayi, the Bugiri inspector of schools, was quoted as saying 20 - 25% of the schools in the district were affected.
In other areas, packing errors caused shortage of question papers where some centres would receive less or more question papers and the balance had to be borrowed from neighbouring centres.
Delivery time was also a problem as some exams would be halfway being done in some schools, while they were being delivered to others. District inspectors of schools also complained that UNEB would make sudden changes, including creating new centres, even as exams were approaching.
The solution
Bukenya says they had to sit down as a board and come up with a solution.
“We organised a one-day closed retreat for all UNEB employees right from the sweeper, to discuss how we can fight examination malpractices. We came up with a way forward, which the board approved,†he said.
However, not everything is going smoothly. There are already a few reports of late deliveries of S.4 exams in the West Nile region.
Arua district experienced a downpour, which slightly delayed delivery.
Some teachers are also complaining that the 30 minutes given to transport exams from the Police stations to examination centres is not enough. Some of their schools are far and require more time.
But according to UNEB spokesperson Eva Konde, the situation is better than last year when some examination centres in western Uganda received examination papers two hours after other schools had started.
Bukenya vowed that no malpractice will be traced back to UNEB as an institution. If any happens, it will be blamed fully on the respective head teachers. “We shall summon them, the invigilators and the teacher in-charge of the affected subject to the board and if they fail to explain, disciplinary action will be taken against them. They may also be arrested and prosecuted,†he said.
The new UNEB
UNEB had at one time become synonymous with massive leakages.
Papers were being sold before the examinations. cases of fraud included impersonation, school assistance and bribery.
In 2006, results of 2,000 students were cancelled. Some teachers and officials were arrested. People who had been found trading in exams were arrested.
“It was a case of professional ethics,†Konde said. “Some schools and officials actively exploited loopholes in the system to cheat. Schools wanted prestige and popularity from good performance, while officials sought money. Schools caught would have their centres de-registered.â€
Bukenya says they are now involving every stakeholder. “We briefed field officers, invigilators, scouts, head teachers, the media and members of the public, especially parents. Everybody is vigilant now and knows where to report in case of malpractices.â€
There is still a problem of poor coverage. For instance, Kalangala district has a total of 84 islands but a few examination centres. Kalangala’s chief administrative officer Hope Nakyanzi said candidates have to be ferried from some islands to sit exams at centres on other islands.
There is also a problem of few distributors. Schools raised a problem of UNEB using one person to distribute papers to about 10 or 20 schools. In Kampala, if there is traffic jam, it causes delays.
But Bukenya says: “We are improving year after year. We are reducing examination malpractices every year. If you compare the malpractices at the time we started administering exams in 1996 and today, there is a very big improvement.â€
Security organisations
Bukenya attributes the improvement to the coming in of other stakeholders. The Police started participating directly in exam administration and invigilation in 2007.
“The Inspector General of Police, Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura, gave me a team of senior officers to work with,†Bukenya says. “Some are from the legal department and others from crime intelligence. We meet every Friday to assess progress. District Police commanders make daily reports about exams that they submit to this team based in Kampala.â€
Uniformed and non-uniformed Police officers monitor the transportation of the exams in different parts of the country.
Apart from the Police, UNEB is also assisted by the Internal Security Organisation and army intelligence officers.
This is in addition to 650 scouts deployed countrywide to check leakages right from Police stations, during transportation, up to the examination room.
Cheats will not be handled with kid gloves, Bukenya warns. Those caught will be prosecuted and severely punished. Offenders will be publicly exposed, he states.
Examination fees
Candidates contribute about 70% of the total examination cost and the Government pays the remaining 30% in form of a subsidy.
Currently, PLE candidates pay sh12,000 each, O’ level students pay sh63,000 and A’ level students pay sh66,500. The 516,890 P.7 candidates who registered this year paid sh6.2b, the 217,358 S.4 students paid sh13.6b, while the 97,679 S.6 students paid sh6.4b.
“In total, over sh26b was raised this year. There are also candidates sitting for the BTVET certificate and diploma exams who pay between sh9,000 and sh75,000 depending on the course,†he said.
According to Bukenya, the money from examination fees is used to select, set, process, print exams and answer sheets, and to distribute, administer and mark exams.
The same amount also has a portion for printing candidates’ certificates.
The unit cost of printing each paper depends on the number of candidates who register for a particular year.
Challenges
“There are still some people who think cheating in the exams is the only way out,†Bukenya says. “They will always be planning new tricks and our challenge is to plan ahead of them.â€
UNEB also complains of inadequate funding. Right now, they cannot emblazon candidates’ photos on their certificates and they are printing certificates from abroad.
“The machine that would print candidates’ certificates with their pictures costs $800,000 (over sh1.5b), which we do not have,†Bukenya says.
“Early this year, we managed to procure a machine (an embosser) that prints braile question papers for blind candidates at $600,000 (over sh1b).
“Without money, we can’t hire more manpower to fight examination malpractices. This year for instance, we deployed 650 scouts. They could have been more if we had resources.â€
THE FOUR STAGES OF GETTING EXAMS FROM SETTING TO MARKING
Setting questions
This involves several examiners from different schools. Questions are set every year and kept in an examination bank. The examiners do not know which question will be chosen because UNEB chooses from a bank that is 10 years old. “We print one question paper per subject every year,†Bukenya says. “In case there is a syllabus change, we change those questions affected and it is usually a slight change.â€
Printing
Questions are not printed until a month to examination time - that is between October and November.
UNEB handles six different examinations namely PLE, O’Level, A’ Level, Junior technical, Crafts and Community Polytechnic examinations. UNEB opened its own printers at its Kyambogo home in 2007, where workers are confined for the entire period of the exams. The printers are under tight security.
Distribution
Question papers are delivered to the different police stations in the country where they remain in custody till the day of exam. They are kept in containers or strong rooms and one person keeps the key. The rooms are supposed to be opened in the presence of school heads, supervisors and district education officers. Question papers leave Police custody 30 minutes before the exams begin. Previously, all batches of a given day were released to schools in the morning, UNEB spokesperson Eva Konde said, and some schools would open the exam envelopes before the set time.
Marking
Examiners are invited for the residential exercise and they are not allowed to leave the designated centres, nor interact with anyone on the outside. Whoever has to leave is not allowed to return. They are also barred from using mobile phones as they mark exams. UNEB has introduced the conveyor belt system of marking, where each answer sheet goes through the hands of different people, with each marking one or a few questions and passing it on to another. This way, no one can patronise or penalise a candidate or school because all they do is mark one number out of, say, eight. It prevents allegations of under-marking or awarding undue marks.
THIS year, the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has put up stringent measures to curb examination leakages and other malpractices.
The body now vows to pull off a fraud-free examination, better than has been seen in recent history.
According to Matthew Bukenya, UNEB’s Executive Secretary, these measures are already working very well because he has not received cases of malpractices since O’ level exams began on October 16.
The total number of candidates sitting Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) as well as Ordinary and Advanced Level exams this year are 831,927. Of these, 516,890 are sitting PLE, 217,358 O’ Level and 97,679, A’ Level.
PLE started with briefing yesterday and the first exam is on Monday November 2. The S.4 national examinations began on October 16 and Senior Six exams will commence on November 6.
Zero tolerance
In an exclusive interview with Saturday Vision, Bukenya assured Ugandans of a different story from this year onwards.
“I personally sleep after midnight everyday during this period because I have to monitor a lot of things right from printing to transportation of the papers.
“During the day, I go to the field to monitor the administration of the exams. This year, we took on a theme: ‘demonstrating care for quality assessment,’ as a way of improving our operations,†Bukenya said.
This year’s examination season has been declared a zero-tolerance one. Previously, UNEB exams were marred by incompetent organisation, leakage of papers, impersonation and conflict, as centres were cancelled.
Last year in Bugiri district, schools got partially blank question papers. Kawo Kawere Nayi, the Bugiri inspector of schools, was quoted as saying 20 - 25% of the schools in the district were affected.
In other areas, packing errors caused shortage of question papers where some centres would receive less or more question papers and the balance had to be borrowed from neighbouring centres.
Delivery time was also a problem as some exams would be halfway being done in some schools, while they were being delivered to others. District inspectors of schools also complained that UNEB would make sudden changes, including creating new centres, even as exams were approaching.
The solution
Bukenya says they had to sit down as a board and come up with a solution.
“We organised a one-day closed retreat for all UNEB employees right from the sweeper, to discuss how we can fight examination malpractices. We came up with a way forward, which the board approved,†he said.
However, not everything is going smoothly. There are already a few reports of late deliveries of S.4 exams in the West Nile region.
Arua district experienced a downpour, which slightly delayed delivery.
Some teachers are also complaining that the 30 minutes given to transport exams from the Police stations to examination centres is not enough. Some of their schools are far and require more time.
But according to UNEB spokesperson Eva Konde, the situation is better than last year when some examination centres in western Uganda received examination papers two hours after other schools had started.
Bukenya vowed that no malpractice will be traced back to UNEB as an institution. If any happens, it will be blamed fully on the respective head teachers. “We shall summon them, the invigilators and the teacher in-charge of the affected subject to the board and if they fail to explain, disciplinary action will be taken against them. They may also be arrested and prosecuted,†he said.
The new UNEB
UNEB had at one time become synonymous with massive leakages.
Papers were being sold before the examinations. cases of fraud included impersonation, school assistance and bribery.
In 2006, results of 2,000 students were cancelled. Some teachers and officials were arrested. People who had been found trading in exams were arrested.
“It was a case of professional ethics,†Konde said. “Some schools and officials actively exploited loopholes in the system to cheat. Schools wanted prestige and popularity from good performance, while officials sought money. Schools caught would have their centres de-registered.â€
Bukenya says they are now involving every stakeholder. “We briefed field officers, invigilators, scouts, head teachers, the media and members of the public, especially parents. Everybody is vigilant now and knows where to report in case of malpractices.â€
There is still a problem of poor coverage. For instance, Kalangala district has a total of 84 islands but a few examination centres. Kalangala’s chief administrative officer Hope Nakyanzi said candidates have to be ferried from some islands to sit exams at centres on other islands.
There is also a problem of few distributors. Schools raised a problem of UNEB using one person to distribute papers to about 10 or 20 schools. In Kampala, if there is traffic jam, it causes delays.
But Bukenya says: “We are improving year after year. We are reducing examination malpractices every year. If you compare the malpractices at the time we started administering exams in 1996 and today, there is a very big improvement.â€
Security organisations
Bukenya attributes the improvement to the coming in of other stakeholders. The Police started participating directly in exam administration and invigilation in 2007.
“The Inspector General of Police, Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura, gave me a team of senior officers to work with,†Bukenya says. “Some are from the legal department and others from crime intelligence. We meet every Friday to assess progress. District Police commanders make daily reports about exams that they submit to this team based in Kampala.â€
Uniformed and non-uniformed Police officers monitor the transportation of the exams in different parts of the country.
Apart from the Police, UNEB is also assisted by the Internal Security Organisation and army intelligence officers.
This is in addition to 650 scouts deployed countrywide to check leakages right from Police stations, during transportation, up to the examination room.
Cheats will not be handled with kid gloves, Bukenya warns. Those caught will be prosecuted and severely punished. Offenders will be publicly exposed, he states.
Examination fees
Candidates contribute about 70% of the total examination cost and the Government pays the remaining 30% in form of a subsidy.
Currently, PLE candidates pay sh12,000 each, O’ level students pay sh63,000 and A’ level students pay sh66,500. The 516,890 P.7 candidates who registered this year paid sh6.2b, the 217,358 S.4 students paid sh13.6b, while the 97,679 S.6 students paid sh6.4b.
“In total, over sh26b was raised this year. There are also candidates sitting for the BTVET certificate and diploma exams who pay between sh9,000 and sh75,000 depending on the course,†he said.
According to Bukenya, the money from examination fees is used to select, set, process, print exams and answer sheets, and to distribute, administer and mark exams.
The same amount also has a portion for printing candidates’ certificates.
The unit cost of printing each paper depends on the number of candidates who register for a particular year.
Challenges
“There are still some people who think cheating in the exams is the only way out,†Bukenya says. “They will always be planning new tricks and our challenge is to plan ahead of them.â€
UNEB also complains of inadequate funding. Right now, they cannot emblazon candidates’ photos on their certificates and they are printing certificates from abroad.
“The machine that would print candidates’ certificates with their pictures costs $800,000 (over sh1.5b), which we do not have,†Bukenya says.
“Early this year, we managed to procure a machine (an embosser) that prints braile question papers for blind candidates at $600,000 (over sh1b).
“Without money, we can’t hire more manpower to fight examination malpractices. This year for instance, we deployed 650 scouts. They could have been more if we had resources.â€
THE FOUR STAGES OF GETTING EXAMS FROM SETTING TO MARKING
Setting questions
This involves several examiners from different schools. Questions are set every year and kept in an examination bank. The examiners do not know which question will be chosen because UNEB chooses from a bank that is 10 years old. “We print one question paper per subject every year,†Bukenya says. “In case there is a syllabus change, we change those questions affected and it is usually a slight change.â€
Printing
Questions are not printed until a month to examination time - that is between October and November.
UNEB handles six different examinations namely PLE, O’Level, A’ Level, Junior technical, Crafts and Community Polytechnic examinations. UNEB opened its own printers at its Kyambogo home in 2007, where workers are confined for the entire period of the exams. The printers are under tight security.
Distribution
Question papers are delivered to the different police stations in the country where they remain in custody till the day of exam. They are kept in containers or strong rooms and one person keeps the key. The rooms are supposed to be opened in the presence of school heads, supervisors and district education officers. Question papers leave Police custody 30 minutes before the exams begin. Previously, all batches of a given day were released to schools in the morning, UNEB spokesperson Eva Konde said, and some schools would open the exam envelopes before the set time.
Marking
Examiners are invited for the residential exercise and they are not allowed to leave the designated centres, nor interact with anyone on the outside. Whoever has to leave is not allowed to return. They are also barred from using mobile phones as they mark exams. UNEB has introduced the conveyor belt system of marking, where each answer sheet goes through the hands of different people, with each marking one or a few questions and passing it on to another. This way, no one can patronise or penalise a candidate or school because all they do is mark one number out of, say, eight. It prevents allegations of under-marking or awarding undue marks.