Within the next two weeks, the results of Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) will be out, Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) said yesterday.
“We are done with the marking and we have embarked on the process to have the results released around mid-January,” UNEB spokesperson Jennifer Kalule said.
Kalule said the results for Uganda Ordinary Certificate of Education (UCE) examinations will also be out by the end of this month, while those for Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) will be released by the end of February.
A total of 695,793 candidates sat for PLE, of whom 51.7% are girls. A total of 133 district monitors and over 10,000 scouts were deployed.
New system
In 2019, UNEB introduced a new coding system for identifying candidates’ schools.
The executive secretary, Dan Odongo, said the names of schools and the district on the examination paper were replaced by random numbers and codes, respectively. The actual random numbers for the school were used along with the candidate’s personal number. These were different for each of the four subjects.
The intention, according to Odongo, was to strengthen the credibility of the national examinations. With random numbers, UNEB examiners were not able to tell the names of schools whose scripts they were marking.
Candidates will be able to access their examination results via mobile phones as soon as they are released. One will be required to send a well-formatted SMS as follows: Type “PLE, UCE, UACE,” leave a space, then type index number and send it to 6600 on networks as will be specified by the board at the time of the release of the results.
There should be no spaces in the index number. For example, UCE U2769/018.
School Calendar
According to the 2020 Ministry of Education and Sports academic calendar, first term for primary and secondary schools will open on Monday, February 3, and end on Friday, May 1. The second term will open Monday, May 25 and end on Friday, August 21. The third term will open on September 14 and end on November 27.
Time management
To avoid wasting time, the ministry emphasized that classes must start at 8:00 am and end not later than 5:00 pm every day and directing districts/city inspectors of schools to ensure compliance.
“Wastage and loss of teaching and learning time at the beginning and end of the term must be stopped. Lessons should start promptly and terms should not be cut short without clearance from my office,” the permanent secretary, Alex Kakooza, said in a statement.
He said all schools, especially boarding schools, should designate only one day a term as a visiting day.
“All headteachers of boarding secondary schools, especially those in Kampala, Wakiso and Mukono districts should ensure that they stagger the starting dates a week earlier than the official opening dates and also stagger the days for the end of the term. This is aimed at eliminating the inconveniences caused every beginning and end of the term to parents and schools,” he said. Dan