PLE may be scrapped

By conan businge, Geoffrey Kulubya and Andrew Masinde

He was a brilliant boy throughout his primary education. At every examination, he never went beyond the third position in class. Joshua Kusiimwa had a great education career path, until the worst happened.

A few days to his Primary Leaving Examinations, Kusiimwa fell sick. Much as he turned up for the final national examinations, he was disorganised and he did not pass.

He got aggregate 15, a far cry from the four aggregates he had consistently obtained from Primary Five. As a result, he failed to join his dream secondary school that only took candidates, who had scored up to aggregate five only.

His dream career of medicine was nipped in the bud since he had to join an academically weak secondary school, ending up with an unprofessional degree course at the university.

But therein lies the problem with the current assessment system. Had Kusiimwa’s records from lower primary been kept and used in the final assessment, he would have passed with flying colours.

“We have lost good brains in this country, not because they are not intelligent, but because they failed to cram towards the final examinations and are now struggling in life. This has to end,” says state minister for higher education, Dr. J.C Muyingo.

Plans to scrapple

Following the perceived unfairness in the current assessment system, Muyingo says he is drafting a paper aimed as scrapping PLE altogether in favour of continuous assessment.

“I have already shared this idea with some top ministry officials and I am working on a paper to be tabled before the ministry for consideration,” Muyingo said while officiating at St. Mark College, Namagoma’s 10th anniversary celebrations.

The veteran educationist observed that the current assessment system encourages children to be coached simply to pass national examinations, which, he says is wrong.

“Children are no longer guided morally and there is no development of skills since pupils’ concentration is merely on passing the final examinations other than comprehending what is taught,” argued Muyingo.

If abolished, Muyingo said, the country’s education system will improve and that the billions of shillings spent on setting, transportation and supervision of national exams to control leakage, cheating and other malpractices, would be saved.

 The Government pays the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) sh10b annually  as candidates’ fees for children under the Universal primary Education (UPE) alone.

Muyingo further contended that the children would also be saved the burden of spending years of excessive reading and cramming their work to pass final national examinations.

“We cannot continue spending billions on PLE when there are cheap alternatives. Right now, the Government needs money to invest in more crucial sectors like skills development programme,” he explains.

Illustrating his point the renowned educationist said popular secondary schools admit the best primary leaving examination candidates, leaving others for the so-called ordinary schools.

“One wonders why we have to torture our children to cram answers with no additional skills gained,” he noted, adding, “Do we need to continue using PLE as the entry exam to Senior One? Are there no other cheaper alternatives?”

According to the 2012 PLE results released by UNEB, 565,663 pupils registered for the examinations.

Only 59,154 representing 11% passed in Division One. Nevertheless the more than 400,000 candidates who scored the required marks joined Senior One.

Continuous Assessment Mooted

In the meantime, the Government has mooted a move to start progressive assessments of primary schools’ pupils.

Continuous assessment, already being piloted in 100 schools across 50 districts will be rolled out to the rest of the schools later according to Connie Kateeba, the executive director of the National Curriculum Development Centre.

UNEB defi nes continuous assessment as a systematic objective and comprehensive way of regularly collecting and accumulating information about a student’s learning achievement over a period of study.

The collected scores are used to guide pupils’ learning and determine their level of attainment.

Initially to be implemented from Primary Five to Seven, scores from continuous assessment will contribute 20% of the final marks while 80% will come from the PLE.

Under the scheme, there will be cumulative records and assessment based on identifi cation of talents, character, special skills and achievement in certain core subjects that may be specified.
 
For a pupil to complete the primary cycle of education, they are expected to have scored well in continuous assessment and final national examinations. Pupils will be assessed in physical education, music, dance and drama, art and technology and then local languages including Kswahili in a phased approach.

Continuous assessment is being introduced to avoid over dependence on paper and pen tests, in favour of assessing the practical skills, attitudes and values.

Here, the assessment focuses on what a learner can do rather than merely what they know or can remember.

With tough targets for teachers and head teachers, automatic promotion and failure to develop physical education and creative arts and proper morals, progressive education seems the best way to redeem the country’s quality of education.

Attempts at continuous assessment

This is not the fi rst time the Government is attempting to implement continuous assessment. Attempts were first made at continuous assessment by UNEB in 1998 and implementation should have started in 2004 beginning with four subjects at P5 and P6 however, the issue was shelved.

While informed sources say the implementation of the scheme was suspended because of complications in its implementation and integrity concerns, official position is that it has been delayed because the education ministry directed that the primary school syllabus/ curriculum is fi rst reviewed.

The review is now almost complete and continuous assessment is now being piloted. Continuous assessment was first recommended by the 1987 Education Policy Review Commission.

The Commission noted that the education system was examination ridden and there were few attempts to assess practical skills.

On assessment and examination, the report recommended inter alia, the introduction of continuous assessment in primary and post-primary training institutions.

The recommendations were approved by the Government, in its White Paper on Education of 1992.

Attempts made by UNEB concentrated on social studies, science, mathematics and english, and did not implement what they had suggested for practical subjects.

Continuous assessment is already being used in Zambia (2005), Nigeria, Namibia (1993), Swaziland, Hong Kong (2005), and Singapore.

Advantages of continuous assessment

There is need to quickly improve the quality of education in the country. According to the National Assessment of Progress in Education Report, done by UNEB from 2011, the proportions of pupils rated proficient dropped to 63% in Primary Three and 45% at Primary Six.For 2012, it rose to 69% at Primary Three and remained unchanged at Primary Six.

As a general picture of the primary section; pupils who reached the defi ned proficiency levels in numeracy and literacy in English (reading, writing and comprehending text) was 45.2% and 40% respectively.

As a supportive assessment strategy, continuous assessment provides many opportunities of enhancing learner achievement.

In a case where examinations are at high stakes, the practice of determining learner achievement using one–shot examination is reduced and with it, the stress, anxiety and fear associatedwith examinations diminish.

More so, experts note that learner’s diffi culties are identified early enough, so opportunities for remedial action can be planned and implemented.

Continuous assessment also gives credit to class work and it helps the teacher to determine the level of readiness of learners.

It is also useful in measuring learning outcomes and practical skills that cannot be assessed at the end of a course through pen and paper. Kateeba also notes that it enables assessment of both process and product, a thing that cannot be achieved by using one end of study period examination.

Challenges

The greatest challenge remains the integrity of the assessment. With schools under pressure to pass their children by all means including cheating, the level of supervision to ensure the integrity of continuous assessment results shall be enormous.

UNEB deploys over 9,000 scouts annually to monitor the national examinations yet cheating still takes place. While the school administrators have welcomed the move, teachers have voiced concern that the large numbers will make the scheme a challenge.