Kampala, (UG): The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has officially released the 2023 Examination Time Tables for the Primary Leaving Examination (PLE), Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE), and Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) examinations.
The national examinations this year will begin on Friday, October 13, 2023, with the briefing of S.4 candidates and the first paper (Geography) on Monday, October 16, 2023.
The UCE examinations will run until November 17, 2023, but along the way, the second set of national examinations (PLE) will take place between November 7th–9th, 2023, starting with the briefing of the candidates.
The third and final set of examinations, UACE, will be conducted from November 10, 2023, to December 1, 2023.
While addressing the media at the release of the timetables this morning at the Media Centre in Kampala, UNEB Executive Director, Mr Dan Odongo advised heads of UNEB centres across the country to ensure that every candidate receives a copy of the timetable and that the same is also displayed on the school noticeboards.
“Center heads can access the timetables from their portals. Hard copies will also be provided along with the other stationery, which will be distributed on Monday, September 11, 2023,” Odongo said.
“Candidates and all those concerned must take special note of the sections on directions to candidates and caution against malpractice in or around the examination room. These have clearly spelt out the instructions that candidates must follow and cases of examination malpractice that can lead to disqualification, cancellation of results, or the arrest of a candidate,” he added.
Additionally, Odongo cautioned candidates across all levels to refrain from acts of involvement in malpractice as this shall lead to the automatic cancellation of the entire results of the examination.
Disclosing the statistics of this year’s national examinations, Onyango said a total of one million, two hundred twenty-four thousand, three hundred seventy-one (1,224,371) candidates registered for all three levels of the final examinations at 20,921 centres.
Of the total candidates, 51% are female, while 49% are male. We have recorded a percentage increase of 12,690 (13.5%) at the UACE level, which is a total of 110,579 candidates this year as compared to 97,889 last year.
At the UCE level, there is a percentage increase of 14,988 (4.3%) in candidature, from 349,433 to 364,421 candidates this year.
There is, however, a drop of 83,438 (10%) in the number of candidates at the PLE level, from 832,809 last year to 749,371 this year.
“Of the entire candidate pool, 3,698 are Special Needs Education (SNE) learners, as compared to 3,400 last year. Of the SNE candidates, 2,436 are PLE candidates, 721 are UCE candidates, and 242 are UACE candidates,” he noted.
In terms of funding, 645,191 (53%) of the total candidates are funded by the government, while 579,180 (47%) of the candidates are privately sponsored.
The UNEB boss also revealed that the Board has just completed a countrywide pre-test of the test items and is currently analyzing the outcome. The pretest exercise was conducted in 220 schools and involved 6,000 students.
“Candidates should look out for the correctness of names as well as the order of names, date of birth, gender, resolution of the candidates’ photograph, and the subjects and papers registered for in the case of UCE and UACE candidates,” Odongo said.
“After confirming registration status, candidates should sign on a parallel register to confirm the correctness of the registration data. Where anomalies in the candidate’s bio-data are found, candidates should inform the school authorities, who shall alert UNEB for correction of the variance,” he concluded.
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