PLE: Exam Malpractice Rises as UNEB Withholds Results of 2,559 Pupils

Results for 2,559 pupils who sat the 2017 Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) have been withheld pending investigations due to alleged examination malpractice, UNEB has said.

This was revealed by Dan Odong, the UNEB Executive Secretary during the release of 2017 PLE at the Office of the Prime Minister in Kampala on Friday.

He noted that security personnel are to escort exams from the storage areas to sitting centres to avoid any examination leakage.

“The board has resolved that from 2018 distribution of PLE examination papers will be escorted by security agencies from storage stations to sitting centres,” he said.

The Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Museveni condemned the practice of examination malpractice and called for the arrest of teachers found to be involved in the vice.

“I condemn examinations malpractices and teachers who are supposed to instill morals in our children but are instead teaching them that its okay to cheat,” said the Minister.

In comparison with the previous year (2016) where UNEB withheld results of 1,886 candidates, last year’s PLE results indicate a slight increase in cases of examination malpractice. There were 673 more cases registered in 2017.

The Education Minister also called upon leaders, headmasters, teachers and all partners of UNEB to play their part in improving the education.

According to UNEB, a total of 466,235 pupils sat for PLE in UPE schools while 179,845 pupils were in private schools.