Schools to begin transmitting students’ assessments on UNEB Portal next term

Schools are set to start transmitting students’ school-based assessments under the new lower secondary curriculum using the Uganda National Examinations Board-UNEB portal after they finalized the mechanisms that will be used.

Unlike the old curriculum, which relied solely on the final Senior Four and Six examinations, the new O’Level curriculum was created to include classroom-based assessment throughout the four-year cycle, which will account for 20 percent of the final national examinations.

Although the school-based scores were meant to be submitted right from Senior One, this did not happen since the curriculum was launched before most of the enabling mechanisms were in place.

However, Jennifer Kalule Musamba, the UNEB spokesperson, says with effect from term one of the new academic year, schools will be transmitting the continuous assessment scores using the UNEB portal. 

“The ICT department has been working on the system. It is now ready. Schools with access to our portal will be able to post those assessments,” said Kalule. 

This portal has been in existence and schools have been using it to register candidates for national examinations, get results and transmit continuous assessment scores of selected subjects like the French language, Home Economics Fine Art, and others. 

“It (The portal) was reconfigured by experts to handle more data and every learner’s scores will be sent regularly. The scores will be aggregated to inform the 20 percent of the end-of-the-cycle result. 80 percent will be from the national examination,” adds Kasule.

But, not all schools have access to the portal given the fact that currently, only examination centers can access it. Kalule, however, says that the board is already working on modalities to ensure that schools without center numbers are also included in the system to enable them to transmit data to the examinations body.

She says that the board is currently working with the National Curriculum Development Center-NCDC and the Education Ministry to find out how this will be conducted.  

Kalule further notes that soon the ministry and relevant agencies including UNEB will provide guidance to schools and parents on how the system will be handled. 

UNEB staff are undergoing training on how to manage this new evaluation as well as developing standardized instruments that schools will use to award marks. Our reporter has learned that the training is bankrolled and facilitated by the British Council in Uganda.

However, many teachers, parents, and students have been wondering how the marks would be transferred to UNEB now that the assessment format is being implemented. Another major concern has been about what would happen to the learner’s scores if he or she transfers from one school to another. 

Available information indicates that every learner will receive a computer-generated Learner Identification Number-LIN on their first registration on the system to help track their performance even if they change schools. The process of allocating these numbers is already underway.

Via URN