Under the previous O-Level examination assessment system, it was easy for schools, parents and other stakeholders to grade the performance of students.
UCE results were graded based on aggregates and divisions (first to fourth). This made it easy for school owners and other stakeholders to determine what “good performance” entailed.
If say 290 out of 300 students in a particular school scored division one, that was obvious for all to see as an excellent performance.
Therefore, this made it easy for schools to market themselves to parents, who were eager for take their children to good-performing schools.
Even media organizations could easily rank the performance of various schools because the criteria could be easily understood.
In return, the so called best-performing schools such as St Mary SS Kitende, Uganda Martyrys Namugongo, Mount St Mary’s Namagunga, Gombe SS, Kings College Budo put a premium on admission.
Some of these schools routinely increased school fees and other charges well aware that many parents could not do anything. They could also bar some students from sitting for UNEB exams at the school claiming they are not “up to the standard.”
With the new system of grading, it will be difficult for school owners or headteachers to make similar claims.
In fact, the new grading system will put many of these so-called first world schools at par with some of the hitherto unknown schools.
It might, therefore, matter little whether a child goes to St Mary’s SS Kitende or Kagoma Secondary School as long as the school has the required facilities.
Similarly, media organizations that had turned examination releases into money-making ventures have been left in a tail spin.
How will they determine which school outperformed all others? What yardstick will they use?
Yes, a student or two could score As in all eight subjects but how would a school describe its collective performance like in the old system?
Under the new competency-based assessment, there is no ranking of candidates into divisions.
The reporting of the achievement levels has changed from the stanine system of 1 to 9 (Distinctions, Credits, Pass and Fail) used in the previous content-based curriculum to letter grades, A, B, C, D and E.
Dan Odongo, the executive director of UNEB said that “a candidate will qualify for the UCE certificate if he/she obtains a competency level grade of D in at least one subject sat for.”
Therefore, under this system Bulo Parents in Butambala could have 90% of students score between A and D like Seeta High School.
