MPs have directed UNEB to review the results of schools that have raised complaints over the recently released PLE results
The press has been awash with accusations against UNEB over the possible under marking of top schools in Kampala leading to a drop in performance for schools that have been traditional pace setters.
The Kalungu West MP Joseph Ssewungu (pictured above) raised the issue this morning when UNEB officials led by the Executive Secretary appeared before the Education committee over their budget estimates for next FY.
Sewungu asked the board to take keen interest in the schools that have raised objections to the results released this month.
Last Thursday, results of the 2018 primary leaving examinations, PLE, were released to largely a loud outcry from Kampala’s elite schools and joyous celebrations from minnows.
The results have added fire to a public debate over whether paying high-end fees guarantees academic success. Pointed questions are beginning to be asked this time round such as; where are the schools that guarantee your child aggregate 4 no matter what? Where are the schools whose justification for hefty fees termly are their top grades?
Most legislators, civil servants, corporate and business people are crying foul.
Uneb executive secretary Dr Dan Odongo has described the accusation as “complete nonsense.”
Parents of a number of elite schools have cried foul insisting that UNEB singled out their pupils and graded them differently leading to low performance.
Odongo denied the accusations stating that nobody has proof of this, he told the legislators that using a new method that conceals school center numbers using codes the identity of pupils and corresponding school is only revealed during the printing of results. He insisted that not even the examiners or data entry clerks know the schools of the results they enter.
He however promised to look into the complaints raised after formal appeals have been filed.
The chairperson of the committee Jacob Opolot however directed that the review should not concentrate on a few schools, he has suggested that UNEB does a regional sampling of results from all regions of the country in order to find out whether the complaints are genuine.
