The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has disclosed that more than 1,000 candidates participated in exam malpractice. Dan Odong, UNEB’s Executive Director, mentioned that there were 64 confirmed incidents of malpractice, while 984 are only suspected cases.
UNEB views this as a significant decrease in malpractice, as there were 3,000 cases reported last year. Furthermore, Odong noted that the types of questions on the exams do not easily facilitate cheating.
Most of the reported incidents occurred in science practical exams, with Physics being the most prominent. A staggering 93.1% of the cases involved science subjects, while 6.9% were related to other subjects.
There is credible evidence indicating that teachers provided students with answers to copy in the science subjects. This is evidenced by the discrepancies between the work submitted by the candidates and the results they achieved in their practicals.
“There has been a very welcome reduction in cases of malpractice. There are 64 cases with a total of 984 candidates suspected, compared to nearly 3,000 suspected last year. The nature of the items in the papers do not lend themselves to malpractice.”
“However, the cases reported are mostly in the science practical papers, with Physics being most affected. Of the cases, 883 (93.1%) are in the Sciences, and only 65 (6.9%) in the rest of the other subjects. In these Science cases, there is overwhelming evidence that the candidates were given experimental results by teachers merely to copy. The work done by the candidates do not relate to results recorded.”
