*Compatriot Tumusiime, Re:Uganda’s exam system unfair
**Thank you for your call to Ugandans to review their methods of measurement and evaluation in schools. I feel very uneasy, however, that you recommend psychologists to be posted in our schools. This is a very bad idea. Psychology, as you know, is a pseudo-science. In N. America, Psychology is offered by Universities mainly as a "filler", to generate revenue. That is how useless it is. Indeed, many truthful Psychologists question what passes as psychological conclusions. Keep the crap out of our schools, please !! Mitayo Potosi Toronto ======================== Uganda’s exam system unfair* *One of the worst failures by the Ugandan education system has been the continued assessment of student’s intellectual ability according to performance in final examinations. A student is perceived to be unintelligent if, despite his/her excellent performance over a period of 4 or 6 years, fails the final Uganda National Examinations Board exams. This is by far the most unpopular idea because it denies children a chance to realise their dreams. There are a number of non-academic reasons that could explain why a child may fail an examination, which may not necessarily mean that he/she is dense. Yet while these shortcomings must not give students unfair advantage over others, their progressive performance over a period of four or six years should be able to bail them out. I think it’s important that we designed a progressive performance system of assessment right from senior one or even primary school. This way, students will know that their future is determined right from the first day they enter school, rather than on the final day when they leave school. There can never be a better motivation to perform well than this as each student would want to better his/her performance of the previous term in order to boost his grades at the end of school. The Uneb should consider students’ progressive results throughout their entire school time; relate them with results from final exams before declaring their grades. This way, we shall eliminate sleepers from grabbing others’ future simply because they out-smarted the examiners or even those whose performance is tagged to cheating. This system is of course already working out perfectly in the university system where one’s degree is not merely determined by third or fourth year results, but rather a combination of all the grades attained throughout the entire course duration. I wish also to suggest that each school should have a trained career psychologist, who should monitor students’ performance, and identify their talent vis avis classroom results. Children must have a career ambition early in their academic journey so that they are guided accordingly on how to realise it. Yes, the current system where career is determined by senior six results could be the reason why we are continuously graduating artificial as opposed to naturalised professionals. Something must be done now to address the final-examination-assessment cancer, because it’s eating away many of our children’s future; both those still in school and those already out of school. * Deo Tumusiime Kabwende, [email protected]
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