The Uganda National Examination Board (UNEB) Executive Director, Dan Odongo, has announced that for the first time, there will be the introduction of the New Lower Secondary Curriculum (NLSC) exams for the award of the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE).

This was revealed on September 30, 2024, as Odongo launched the UNEB examinations timetable at the Uganda Media Centre. He said that unlike previously, when UNEB had three sets of examinations, this time round the board will conduct four Examinations (4Es), the UCE examination based on the NLSC, and the UCE (transitional examination), based on the old curriculum.

“The transitional examination is aimed at giving an opportunity to those that needed to repeat or those that missed the examination in 2023 for various reasons. This is a one-off examination under the old curriculum,” he said.

Odongo said that the timetable for the NLSC has 36 subjects compared to the 46 subjects of the old curriculum, adding that it focuses on the End of Cycle (EoC) assessment conducted by UNEB, which will contribute 80% of the overall achievement by each learner. The other 20% is comprised of the Continuous Assessment (CA) carried out at school for every learner.

The UNEB ED clarified the dates for submitting, noting that all stakeholders were informed of the extension of the date for submission.

“Continuous Assessment (CA) scores MUST be submitted to UNEB through the school portal. The deadline for submission has been extended from 30th September to 30th October, 2024, to give ample time to schools to compile and submit the scores on the portal,” Odongo added.

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Rose Mukasa, the Principle Examinations Officer at UNEB, said that in this year’s exams, there has been an addition of two foreign languages, which will be examined in both listening and speaking.

“In terms of assessment modalities, the Board will assess learners’ achievements in listening and speaking for two of the foreign languages—Latin and Arabic. A total of 4,490 candidates have registered for the foreign languages, including French (1,335), Arabic (1,993), Latin (627), German (209), and Chinese (326),” she added.

In January 2020, the government of Uganda, through the Ministry of Education and Sports and the National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC), rolled out the NLSC with the senior students of that year, and they will be the first to sit for the UCE exams based on the new curriculum, which are starting on Friday, October 11, 2024.

The Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) are meant to start on Monday, November 4, 2024, whereas the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) starts on Friday, November 8, 2024.