I read with dismay, an article titled, “Teachers disagree with UNEB over PLE” in the New Vision of 19th January 2009, in which primary teachers, head teachers and UNEB officials were justifying the poor performance of pupils in the just released PLE results.  

Issues raised ranged from difficult English (inappropriate language) used, over qualified examiners, setting outside past papers, to tight supervision by UNEB which made “cheating difficult this time”. Most interesting of all though, was the claim by Patrick Kaluma, the deputy head teacher of Kitante Primary School that the questions set were more of application than knowledge! 

Statistics indicate that, only 3.7% of the pupils who sat for PLE last year passed in division one, which means, the remaining 93% either passed in division two,  three, or failed completely. Question is, are the reasons given above justification enough for the poor performance? I would say no! and give my reasons as follows; 

First and foremost, UNEB secretary Mathew Bukenya confessed that all along, schools have been cheating exams (examination mal-practice) because of poor supervision and laxity in the examination system right from the time they are set to the time they are delivered to schools to serve their purpose. Which means, in one way or the other, either exam papers have always found their way out of UNEB prior to examination time and it’s obvious that the schools with the best connections in UNEB have always benefited at the expense of their less privileged counterparts, or pupils and their teachers have always cheated the during exam time with the help of supervisors/invigilators. 

Secondly, the claims that schools where relying on past papers and that the exams where more of application than knowledge justifies the weakness in the delivery system, where pupils are trained to pass exams through continuous reciting of class work (cramming) and reproducing. This can be justified by the common so-called coaching where pupils are helped to memorize answers to questions other than building their reasoning capacity for instance through brain teasers, mazes, reading a wide range of books and being challenged to assess the events therein at an appropriate level of reasoning. This is so because the system so dictates.  

Thirdly, the education profession at primary level usually does not attract the best of the best students from O-level, and even those who enroll in NTCs, especially in the current era do so because they are limited by either their performance, poverty or both. My sister is a primary teacher because she got distracted at A-Level and did not get two principal passes, so she used here good O-level result to join the NTC as a last resort due to limited finances. This affects the quality of teachers channed out to teach our children at such a tender learning stage.

The teachers are psychologically distracted, have a negative attitude towards their job and are not motivated to offer their best when they get the job due to meager pay. They also spend more time outside class looking for supplementary income to meet their needs.You can judge from the common argument by teachers that the language used was difficult to know that even the teachers have a limit in vocabulary as they teach; most likely they are still using the colonial techniques of delivery, which limits them to a few text books and past papers.  

I am glad that the exam style was not based on past papers this time, but am also flabbergasted by the fact that UNEB seems to be detached from the Ministry of Education. Change should not start from UNEB without even consulting the key stakeholders (schools), it should start at the MoES by changing the curriculum at the beginning of the academic year, highlighting major changes and emphasizing changes in the delivery system such that schools can follow suite to appropriately prepare the pupils.

There is need for a proper hierarchical linkage between the MoES, Schools, Higher Institutions of learning and UNEB through a well established system of information sharing and exchange. Then remodel the education delivery system such that it is more of “Application than just academics” if I may borrow Kaluma’s words. Pupils should be given relevant skills to expand their knowledge outside class work and get ready for a competitive higher education and work world.