The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) is introducing a new system that will be used to grade schools.
The value-added score is a system that is intended to reward the efforts of all schools by analyzing extra considerations away from the immediate results of the exam.
UNEB Secretary, Dan Odongo, says the new system will ensure that schools that admit students with lower grades are also recognized on their value addition.
He explains that such schools put in a lot to ensure that the learners who are considered to be average performers also end up with good grades and these efforts will be rewarded under the value-added score system.
Odongo says, unlike the old system which concentrates on examinations results, the value-added score will be tracking the learners from their previous exam for instance Primary Leaving Exam results in case a student is now sitting for the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE).
He says that the new system will compel all schools to treat all the students they have in the same way and not concentrate on a few who they think will fetch them good grades.
He indicates that they intend to start with the sensitization immediately when the current situation regarding covid-19 normalizes.
The new grading system of schools was an arrangement funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). However, they pulled out, which delayed the implementation.
For years, the board has been using the system of grading candidates according to their results without considering any other issues like how a given candidate performed in a previous final exam under UNEB.
Fagil Mande, an educationalist and former chairman of the UNEB, says the grading of the schools is good but the focus needs to be put on the abilities that the schools give to the learners and not only looking at the exams.
‘’If I was going to be grading I would not grade schools according to the grades they admitted, I would grade them according to the quality which comes out and not exams,” Mande says.
Dr Jane Egau, the Director for Higher Technical Vocational Education and Training in the Ministry of Education and Sports, says the new grading system is part of the ministry restructuring program going in all its structures.
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