Educationists want Uneb to overhaul assessment

“Our education system has concentrated on cognitive assessment alone. The other two; affective and psychomotor domain have been left out. People leave school without values and skills because they are not assessed,” Mr Grace Lubaale, the Kyambogo University Teacher Education department head said.

He was speaking to primary teachers’ college principals at a training workshop in Nakaseke District on how to use instructional materials being developed to deliver the thematic curriculum introduced in 2007 to address primary literacy and numeracy weaknesses, the overcrowded curriculum and promote life-long skills among children.

“Uneb must change its assessment to incorporate all the three aspects to have a complete person ready for work. This should not be done haphazardly or be politically influenced,” he said.
Uneb’s assessment has been criticised across the board, including by employers, who argue that graduates from this system fall short of the market needs and that the examining body has failed to move with the times.

While at a research dissemination: ‘Do Uneb results predict competencies required to excel academically in law school?’ last year, Mr Herbert Batamye Kyobe, Makerere University head of pre-entry exams and mature age, said the university was forced to introduce pre-entry exams three years ago because over the years, some candidates who excelled in Uneb’s Senior Six exams, were not performing as expected when they joined university.

But Mr Hamis Kaheru, the Uneb spokesperson, maintains that the thematic curriculum introduced seven years ago has ‘not changed anything in upper primary’ to require them to change the setting.

“The thematic curriculum only applies to lower primary where teaching in local languages has been emphasised. But the curriculum itself has not changed for upper primary. Our job is to assess basing on the curriculum given to us by National Curriculum Development Centre and until they have provided us with that change, we maintain what we have been assessing,” Mr Kaheru said in an interview.

The curriculum review has been extended to secondary education and is expected to roll out in 2017.

One of the changes in the primary curriculum is the use of local languages in lower primary as the medium of instruction at school as opposed to a child being introduced to English language on their first day school. However, little is documented on the several languages spoken in Uganda, making it difficult for teachers to have references.

Ms Innocent Mulindwa, a World Bank senior education specialist, said that it was increasingly becoming difficult for teachers to assess the learners in literacy and numeracy. This, she added made it difficult to realise the impact of the review.

It is against this background that government, supported by Global Partnership for Education, developed a standard format to assist teachers in delivering the new curriculum with $100m (Shs354.7 billion) grant to be supervised by World Bank.
However, she appealed to government to ensure that the curriculum reviews being done are incorporated in the assessment so that they are reflected on the graduates’ qualifications.

For a start, teachers’ instructional materials for 10 local languages from 27 districts and English language have been developed and will subsequently be extended to other languages.
“Much as Uganda moves thematic curriculum, there is no standard in training reading and writing. There is a lot missing. Teachers are not well skilled to teach the curriculum they are expected to teach,” Ms Mulindwa said.

She added: “Our learners are not learning and we blame the teacher. But we also know that there are other factors for learning to take place. Some of the children go to school on empty stomach, half of the learners come to school without scholastic materials like books and pencils while others don’t attend regularly.”

Ms Mulindwa urged the principals to ensure children are not denied access to the materials if there is going to be improvement in their literacy and numeracy skills.

Her pleas were re-echoed by Ms Margaret Nsereko, a Ministry of Education commissioner, Teacher Education to change their negative attitude towards teaching local languages because learners understand new concepts best when they are explained in their languages.

But educationists are optimistic that the materials being developed are going to address this problem. For instance, “I Can Read and Write” text book for P1 will look at the child’s phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension.

WHAT KEY STAKEHOLDERS SAY

Ms Grace Baguma, Director National Curriculum Development Centre:
“We have come up with a proposal to look into the assessment of children which currently is not being done in its entirety. We are focusing on summative assessment and giving lip service to formative assessment which is equally important. Together with Uneb, Instructors of Technical Training institutions and National Curriculum Development Centre, we are looking at how we can reform assessment modalities in Uganda to include formative so that it is part of teaching and learning for improved quality education. We are going to look at how we can better assess primary. If it means removing Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE), then they will be removed. We are still developing a policy document which is all encompassing.”

Mr John C Muyingo,
State Minister for primary:
“Definitely, there will be a change of assessment. We are changing the curriculum. It calls for change of mode of assessment, evaluation. But if you ask what will happen to PLE right now, I have no answer. The ministry will wait for what the relevant bodies responsible will advise.

If you ask what will happen to PLE right now, I have no answer. The ministry will wait for what the relevant bodies will advise.

But as Muyingo, I have strong feelings that we scrap PLE because these days everybody goes to primary, secondary and tertiary given the government programmes of all children should be in school. Those days, PLE would enable government to sieve who should continue to secondary. If you look at the cost of conducting PLE, for me that money should be ploughed in early childhood development which is a critical foundation. We only have 9per cent of nursery going children in school and yet many are concentrated in town centres. I am looking for money from wherever I can get it to support early childhood education where we have not invested before.

And PLE is one of the areas I would scrap funding so that we support early childhood learning which we have neglected for a long time. The foundation is shaky and that is worrying me. I would rather we scrap PLE and ensure every primary school has a nursery school section. I have shared my feelings with other colleagues and there are many people who think like me. We shall consider scrapping PLE at an appropriate time. The Ministry has not said that but as Muyingo, PLE should be scrapped.”

Mr Johnson Amule, Gulu PTC
“The method we use to assess today is based on how much a child a child is able to remember than their ability to understand and do things. This encourages cram work. I encourage continuous assessment so that all the child’s components are included on their academic documents.”

Aggrey Tusingwire, a parent:
“PLE assessment should be reviewed. A child may not be good at Math but has interest in athletics. They should be encouraged so that they do what they excel in and this should be reflected on the academic documents.”