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), arguing that the system is a major driver of examination malpractice in Uganda’s primary schools.

Speaking during the release of the 2025 PLE results at State House, Nakasero, UNEB Chairperson Prof. Celestino Obua directly linked persistent cheating to intense pressure on schools to produce candidates with ultra-low aggregates, particularly Aggregate 4, which has become the dominant benchmark for academic excellence.

“This, apparently, is the gold standard by which parents rank schools. I now pray that you allow the Board to reintroduce this proposal for possible approval and implementation,” Obua said, addressing the education minister.

UNEB believes scrapping numerical aggregates would significantly reduce incentives for cheating, shift attention back to genuine learning, and restore credibility to primary school certification in Uganda.

The proposal, first presented in 2021, seeks to replace aggregates with an assessment framework that better reflects learner competency and individual subject performance. This model 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 learning.

The Ministry of Education shelved the proposal at the time due to disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, with the education system now stabilising and examination malpractice still posing a serious threat, UNEB is once again pushing for its approval and implementation.

Prof. Obua warned that desperation among some school directors and headteachers, largely driven by parental and societal expectations for top aggregates, has fuelled increasingly sophisticated cheating networks. He revealed that some examination papers are compromised as early as the distribution stage.

“When distributors deliver question paper envelopes to centres, some headteachers, working with already compromised scouts, cut them open to access the papers and assist candidates before or during the examination,” he revealed.

UNEB investigations have also uncovered the involvement of some district education officials. Obua cited a major breakthrough in Kassanda District, where the Board’s security team traced the epicentre of a leakage network to a private school.

“During its investigations, the Board’s security team discovered the epicentre as being a private school in Kassanda District. The District Inspector of Schools, the school director, headteacher, invigilators, appointed from Nansana near Kampala, and scouts were arrested,” he said.

The arrests exposed a network of collaborating schools that allegedly received leaked examination materials through WhatsApp groups. So far, eight individuals have been convicted and sentenced, several others are out on bail, five remain on remand, and security agencies are still pursuing suspects who remain at large.

“The Board, with the support of security agencies, is determined to track down those persons and bring them to book. Their diabolical actions pose a serious threat to our education system. We hope the courts will pass deterrent sentences in accordance with the UNEB Act,” Obua emphasised.

According to UNEB Executive Director Dan Odongo, most cases involving withheld PLE results in 2025 were recorded in districts such as Kisoro, Kampala, Mukono, Namutumba, Kassanda, Buyende, and Kaliro.

Odongo, however, noted significant improvement in areas once notorious for examination malpractice along the Rwenzori–Tooro axis. Districts including Kyenjojo, Kabarole, and Bundibugyo, previously associated with high levels of cheating, have registered a clear decline in examination fraud.

From the 2025 PLE cycle, UNEB has secured eight convictions, while 15 cases are still before courts across the country. The Board says efforts to curb malpractice are intensifying, with leakages at the UNEB level declining steadily over time.

However, new vulnerabilities have emerged at the distribution stage, where some transporters reportedly tamper with examination parcels and share materials before the official start of examinations. UNEB also warned of increasingly subtle forms of cheating within examination rooms, including writing answers on blackboards and the use of impostors, practices the Board says threaten the integrity of Uganda’s national examinations.