Primary Leaving Examinations

In Uganda, in order to leave primary school and enter secondary school you have to pass a standardized test called a Primary Leaving Examination. This examination takes two days. It covers English, Social Studies, Math, and Science. I have not been able to see a copy of the Social Studies or Science sections, but I have been able to look at both an English and Math section.

The English section consists of two parts. The first has fifty questions and is worth fifty points. The questions address topics like alphabetizing, finding the correct form of words such as funny, ordering of words in sentences, abbreviations, and singular versus plural of irregulars (for example wolf vs. wolves). The second section is reading comprehension and consists of five different passages, some stories others invitations to parties others government notices followed by one question with about five parts.

Similarly the Math section is split into two sections. The first consisting of short answer straight forward questions including simple arithmetic, percentages/fractions, simple geometry, modal math, and roman numerals. The second section consisting of multiple part longer questions covering more complex concepts like creating accurate angles with out a protractor (something I never learned how to do and still don’t understand).

It is extremely difficult for students that attend bad public schools in poor areas like St. Timothy’s Bunyere to pass for several reasons. First, the test is given in English. While the students are supposed to be taught completely in English starting in P.4 they are not. Many teachers revert to teaching in Luganda in order to make sure their students fully understand the topic. Therefore, while it is assumed by the government that these students can at least speak english, they cannot. Therefore, the students often can’t read the test. Second, when studying for the english part of the exam students are not taught about parts of a sentence (nouns/verbs …) but taught how to answer questions by memorization. For example, there are a number of questions asking the student to rearrange the words. For example, they are given two sentences and asked to combine them using the words as well as. Third it is hard for these students to pass the English section of the examination because many questions on the exam itself are grammatically incorrect. Forth, it is hard for the Bunyere students to do well because their teachers often teach them incorrectly. For example, Steve and I started helping correct their weekly practice exams. While going through the math test we found that the teacher did worse on his answer key than three of his students did when taking the test. If we counted the questions he did not do as wrong he scored in the 70%, if we did not count the questions he did not complete he got just above 80% the grade required to pass. Fifth, the student’s parents have to pay extra school fees for practice tests and a test fee as well. This is a huge burden on many of the families and they often can’t afford to buy all the practice tests or pay the test fee more than once. So if their child isn’t lucky enough to pass the first time they probably won’t get another chance.

The Primary Leaving Exam was given on November 4th and 5th. The P.7 Bunyere students are now waiting for their results which will come in early feburary. The exams are sent to Kampala and graded there.