Government Rules Out Supplementary National Exams Under UNEB Act

The Ugandan government has firmly maintained that the current legal framework does not accommodate supplementary national examinations. During a plenary sitting, the Minister of State for Education and Sports (Primary), Hon. Phyllis Chemutai, addressed Parliament regarding learners who miss their exams due to unavoidable circumstances.

The matter was brought to the floor by Hon. Andrew Kiiza, who highlighted that roughly 14,000 registered learners missed their national assessments last year. According to Kiiza, missing these exams often forces students to lose an entire academic year, with many eventually dropping out of school altogether.

In response, Minister Chemutai explained that organizing supplementary examinations is neither practical nor sustainable. She noted that the extensive preparation and administrative demands required by the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) make a secondary testing cycle extremely difficult to manage.

Furthermore, the minister cautioned that introducing supplementary exams could leave the system vulnerable to manipulation. She argued that it might encourage candidates to intentionally defer their tests without valid reasons, thereby undermining the predictability and integrity of the national assessment process.

Speaker Jacob Marksons Oboth expressed concern over the strictness of the current legislation, remarking that laws lacking exceptions can be unfair to students facing genuine hardships. Meanwhile, Deputy Attorney General Jackson Kafuuzi suggested that Parliament could explore amending the law and adjusting the national budget to accommodate specific exceptions for affected learners.

Read more details on the Parliament of Uganda.