Prime
Evaluate PLE results trends to improve education system
Pupils and teachers at Little Angels Primary School in Ntungamo District lift their best candidate Asiimwe Isaiah who scored Agg 4 in the 2023 PLE results released on January 25, 2024. PHOTO/PEREZ RUMANZI
What you need to know:
- The issue: PLE results
- Our view: Away from all the fanfare and tears, all stakeholders must stop and extensively examine what these results really tell of our education system and the content we have chosen to teach our students but also the methods of instruction.
Yesterday, Uganda National Examination Board officially released the 2023 Primary Leaving Examinations results and as a norm now, the release of the long-awaited results is cause for celebration for those who excelled according to their expectations and disappointment to those who didn’t.
A total of 648,662 candidates passed in four grades in 2023 PLE that was held between November 8 and November 9 last year. Of these 86,582 11 percent of the candidates passed in Division 1 336,507 candidates in Division 2 156290 in Division 3 while 69283 passed in Division 4.
However, on the not so bright side, a total of 88,269 failed while 12,323 did not sit for the exams and the 88,269 candidates who failed are also ungraded.
These, according to the executive director of Uganda National Examinations Board are those who failed to reach the minimum level of performance that can be awarded at least a Division 4 and are not eligible for admission to Senior 1.
We congratulate the excelling students and to those who didn’t perform as expected, we say, this is hardly the beginning of your education journey and life in general so take heart and seek to change the tide at the next level.
Away from all the fanfare and tears, all stakeholders must stop and extensively examine what these results really tell of our education system and the content we have chosen to teach our students but also the methods of instruction. And after, changes to improve the system should be implemented otherwise, with no evaluation and implementation, this will simply remain an event on the education calendar.
Another issue worth noting is that school administrators, teachers, parents, guardians and other stakeholders must be keen on how those who don’t perform as expected are treated and how they deal with the disappointment.
In 2021, 15-year-old Daphine Kimuli who sat her PLE at Bwikya Muslim Primary School in Hoima City allegedly committed suicide because she reportedly performed poorly. She scored an aggregate 25.
In a suicide note, she claimed that people were laughing at her for performing poorly in PLE.
While we might not have complete control on what is said to our children, parents, guardians, teachers and other stakeholders must be the champions of their children’s mental health and safety.
Have a plan of how to manage disappointment and ridicule. After all, life will serve them plenty of this long after PLE results. Best to learn how to manage it even if minimally early.
