When Peace Nampiima completed her Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) at Makerere University primary school last year, she expected a fairly-good performance.
But she was disappointed when the school informed her that she got aggregate 32, which falls under grade 4.
“I felt so bad. I failed because I didn’t read my books well as most of the time I was doing housework,” Nampiima, 15, says. “The little time I would get to revise was at night and I used to doze, instead.”
While her former classmates got admission in various private secondary schools, her low-income earning mother chose to take her to a public universal secondary education (USE) school.
Even there, Nampiima was rejected after USE schools had put their cut-off points at aggregate 28. This left her with no option but to repeat primary seven this year, as advised by her parents and teachers.
“I feel good that I am studying again. My friends had told me that I am a big girl and that I should get married but I refused,” she says. “I am very hardworking and expect to get a first or second grade this time.”
At the end of first term, she managed to get aggregate 29 – thanks to extensive revision unlike in the past. According to Sophie Atim, the director of studies at Makerere University primary school, Nampiima would have performed better in PLE if she had been allowed to repeat primary six, and not automatically promoted to primary seven.
“First of all, since primary five, her report cards would read; ‘try the next class but not promoted’. By the time she reached primary seven, she could not read even simple passages,” Atim says.
She, however, supports her colleagues for giving Nampiima a green light to higher classes regardless of her performance.
“This is a UPE school. It is a government policy that no learner should repeat a class because of limited capitation grants,” she explained. “[But] this policy has crippled UPE schools by exposing us in Uneb exams that we are failures who can’t compete with private schools.”
Out of the 49 candidates registered at the school last year, only 10 passed in division one, 18 (division two), 18 (division three) and four (division four) while eight were un-graded and one failed. According to Atim, most parents have not helped in fighting the policy as they insist on automatic promotion of poor-performing learners.
“Some parents do not encourage children to report to school daily. They come towards the end-of-term exams and fail miserably. Now, when you compel such children to repeat a class, their parents disagree,” she says.
‘SRAP AUTOMATIC PROMOTION’
In a bid to promote universal education for learners of school age (six years and above), government introduced the automatic promotion policy in 2007. Under the policy, learners under UPE and USE must progress from one class to another, automatically, without considering the quality of their performance.
However, the policy has continued to raise conflicting views among educationists on its usefulness, with the parliamentary committee on education now recommending that it should be scrapped.
In a May 2017 report, the committee quotes a master’s research report by a one Harriet Kimani (2012) which found that the system of automatic promotion influenced learners’ performance negatively and changed teachers’ motivation from having learners comprehend and pass their subjects to having them proceed to the next class.
“The committee is concerned that the ‘no repeat’ policy has compromised the quality of [learners] emerging from the schools. In addition, it may be contributing to the poor quality of graduates emerging from the education system at the end of their university studies,” reads part of the report.
It adds: “The same graduates have been reported to have low productivity, weak comprehension and less competitive advantage in comparison to their counterparts in the region”.
The parliamentary education committee urges the ministry of education to reconsider the policy with a view to strengthening the quality of education at the elementary level.
“They should also ensure that [learners] are not promoted to the next class as a matter of course, but based on an effective performance assessment,” says the report.
Recommendations of scrapping the policy by the committee are also echoed by a number of head teachers managing UPE schools. Opus Ariko, the head teacher of Alengo primary school in Katakwi district, told The Observer he welcomes the idea.
“It is not good to promote a child when he or she is not acquainted with the first level because when they reach primary seven, they will just fail,” Ariko says. “At my school, for children who have not performed well, I discuss with their parents and advise them to repeat the classes. Luckily, though, they allow and children also accept to repeat.”
Another head teacher at a UPE school in Lwengo district who preferred anonymity in order to “keep her job”, says the school abandoned the policy long before the committee came with its report.
“We are no longer implementing that policy. We let children repeat, and once they improve; we promote them to another class,” says the head teacher.
According to the head teacher, UPE should not be characterised with passing through the system but, rather, learners to benefit from universal education.
She adds that since government does not follow up on repeaters, more learners continue to benefit from capitation grant for the second time, something that is against the capitation grant guidelines.
“By the end of the year, what we call repeaters have improved on their performance at no extra cost and promoted to the next class,” she says.
POLICY REVIEW IN PIPELINE
As head teachers and MPs grumble about the policy, the ministry of education is also planning to review it. Speaking to The Observer last week, Dr Tonny Mukasa-Lusambu, the assistant commissioner, Primary Education, said they expect to discuss proposed guidelines to the automatic promotion policy next month.
“One of the challenges stakeholders point at as the cause of poor performance of UPE is automatic promotion. It is imperative that we revisit the policy by providing some adjustments to ensure that more learners access school as well as improve the quality of education,” Mukasa-Lusambu said.
Some of the proposed guidelines that are yet to be discussed include ensuring regular attendance of teachers and learners and strengthening class roll calls. In order to address teachers’ absenteeism which, he says, has immensely contributed to poor performance of learners, all teachers shall register their daily presence twice; in an ordinary arrival book and on the school notice board for easy tracking by inspectors and supervisors.
“At the end of the academic year, a pupil shall be compelled to repeat if they fail to score the required pass mark or did not attend school for at least three quarters of the time and have failed to cover the necessary curriculum content,” he said.
In addition, repeating a class must come with a mutual agreement between the parent and teachers that there is clear evidence to alleviate challenges responsible for the learner’s failure like changing the teacher or classroom and stopping or checking the pupil’s absenteeism.
It remains the prayer of Nampiima that learners who accept to repeat classes are “not bullied by other children and teachers” as they struggle to improve their performance.
nangonzi@observer.ug