Change In Curriculum Affected Our Performance – HeadTeacher
James Endriyo stresses a point during the interview Photo Credit Andrew Cohen Amvesi
ARUA. The headteacher of Hope Way Nursery and Primary school in Arua City has blamed the decline in 2024 Primary Leaving Examination (PLE) performance on the change in curriculum.
Speaking to journalists in his office on Friday, January 24, 2025, James Endriyo explained that because of the new curriculum, there were some changes in the marking center which later affected the overall performance of pupils.
Out of the 69 candidates Hope Way PS registered to sit for the 2024 PLE, 14 passed in First Grade, 54 in Second Grade and 1 got Third Grade.
“Generally, to me this performance has not been okay compared to other years. Our challenge has mainly been the change in curriculum. Though we covered the syllabus very early but because of the new curriculum, there were some changes made in the examination marking center which we didn’t expect and for us as Hope Way, the result wasn’t okay,” Endriyo said.
He added that: “In the previous years, they used to mark direct answers but last year, a child had to explain the answer s/he had written and that is why it affected their performance so greatly.”
Endriyo also observed that as teachers, they were not trained on the implementation of the new curriculum.
“The government should consider having a lot of refresher courses for the teachers so as to cope up with the current affairs when it comes to the implementation of the new curriculum if performance is to improve in the coming years,” Endriyo appealed.
Chuol Dak Chuol, one of the best pupils of Hope Way Nursery and Primary school who scored aggregate 8 in last year’s PLE, concurred with Endriyo on the concern regarding the change in curriculum, saying the papers they sat required a lot of reasoning as opposed to the questions in the past papers he has been reading.
“It is only the Mathematics paper which was somehow direct, but the rest of the papers required a lot of thinking. Even though I thought I would perform better in Science and English, they also disappointed me because of the nature of the questions set,” Chuol said.
Chuol noted that generally, the past papers were somehow easy because of the old curriculum compared to last year’s examinations which were premised on the new curriculum.
Despite failing to meet his expectation of scoring aggregate 5, Chuol still expressed optimism of chasing his dream of becoming an Information and Technology (IT) expert in the near future.