Agency
The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has revived its long-standing proposal to abolish the aggregate-based grading system for the Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE), in a decisive move aimed at dismantling one of the leading drivers of examination malpractice in primary schools.
UNEB Chairperson Prof. Celestino Obua appealed on Friday during the release of the 2025 PLE results at State House, Nakasero, directly linking persistent cheating to the intense pressure on schools to produce candidates with ultra-low aggregates, especially Aggregate 4, widely viewed as the ultimate benchmark of academic excellence.
By eliminating the aggregate obsession, UNEB believes it can significantly reduce incentives for malpractice, refocus education on genuine learning, and restore credibility to primary school certification.
The proposal, first tabled in 2021, seeks to replace numerical aggregates with an assessment framework that better reflects competency and individual subject performance.
The approach mirrors reforms already implemented at the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) level, where UNEB replaced the traditional aggregate and division system with letter grades (A-E) under the competency-based curriculum, placing greater emphasis on skills application rather than rote performance.
