KAMPALA – The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has on Wednesday, August 6, released the examination timetables for the 2023 Primary Leaving Examination (PLE), Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE), and Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) final examinations.
According to UNEB, the 2023 national examinations will start on Friday, October 13th with the briefing of U.C.E candidates.
The executive director of UNEB, Dan Odongo says senior four candidates would start their final exams on 13 October to November 17.
Primary Seven pupils will write their exams from 7th November to 9th November while U.A.C.E will be conducted from November 10 to December 1.
A total of one million, two hundred twenty-four thousand, three hundred seventy-one (1,224,371) have been registered to sit for final examinations in the three education cycles; PLE, UCE and UACE.
“We have recorded a percentage increase of 12,690 (13.5 percent) at the UACE level, which is a total of 110,579 candidates this year, as compared to 97,889 last year,” Odongo told Journalists at the Uganda Media Centre in Kampala.
He added that the UCE level recorded a percentage increase of 14,988 (4.3 per cent) in candidature, from 349,433 to 364,421 candidates this year.
However, there is a 10 per cent decline in PLE candidates, from 832,809 last year to 749,371 this year.
Odong clarified that this reduction aligns with the typical number of learners expected to take the PLE annually, save for the previous years which saw inflated numbers due to the clog in the system caused by COVID-19 disruptions.
Odong said that this year’s national examinations will commence on Friday, October 13, with the briefing of UCE candidates and run until November 17, 2023, while PLE will be conducted from November 7 to 9, 2023 and UACE, will be conducted from November 10 – December 1, 2023.
Odong once re-echoed UNEB’s long-term plea to teachers, school heads, and parents to prepare their learners to avoid cheating which might result in the cancellation of their examination results.
In the same development, Odong said that while the actual examination under the New Lower Secondary School Curriculum will take place next year, 2024, preparations are ongoing to assess learners under this curriculum.
“We have just completed a countrywide pre-test of the test items, and are currently analyzing the outcome. The pretest exercise was conducted in 220 schools and involved 6,000 students. During the pretest, the Board interacted with the learners of Senior Three (the class that did the pretest) and collected valuable insights from the students.”
“Views of teachers are also being collected. These and the analysis of the results of the pretest will inform the Board’s decisions on the final paper formats.” He said
