Uneb to examine candidates in sign language starting next year

The Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) will next year (2024) start examining senior four candidates in sign language as one of the optional subjects under the revised lower secondary curriculum.

The move, which aims to improve the low performance of deaf candidates in national examinations as well as encourage the teaching of sign language, has been hailed by key education stakeholders, writes YUDAYA NANGONZI.

The Uneb executive director, Dan Odondo, said during the release of the 2022 Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) examination results at the state house in Nakasero.

According to Odongo, the move aims at improving the low performance of deaf candidates in national examinations as well as encourage the teaching of sign language.

“It has come to our attention that the language of instruction in schools is probably the problem for deaf candidates. We need to increase the use of sign language in the schools to improve the ability of these candidates,” Odongo said.

He added: “We are starting with O-level candidates of 2024 since NCDC has completed their curriculum. For P7 and S6, once the NCDC has developed their curricula, we shall examine them.”

Speaking on the sidelines of the release, Odongo told The Observer that experts have consistently expressed concern about the limitations in correct sign language while teaching deaf children. With the sign language curriculum in place, the board now expects teachers to concentrate on teaching sign language as a “language” to improve the capability of deaf learners in other subjects.

“Deaf learners will now understand the concepts better than they do now. We hope translates into better performance in the other subjects as well. At Uneb, we have sufficient staff to undertake this new task during examinations,” he said.

The director of NCDC, Dr Grace Baguma, said this is a breakthrough for deaf children with a more inclusive education system.

“We gave Uneb the syllabus and I am glad this has finally materialized. I will send guidelines to Uneb on how they will examine deaf candidates in sign language. The experts at NCDC have prepared sample examination questions to guide Uneb. We have done our job as curriculum developers and handed over the documents to Uneb for implementation,” Baguma said.

She explained that candidates shall be examined technically “because sign language is signed and the specialists know how it is going to be done.”

Asked why primary seven and senior six levels were left out, Baguma said: “We want to move in a phased manner. At primary, we have not yet gone there properly but we shall reach them with time. For senior six, we have started revising the entire A-level curriculum and it’s automatic that sign language will come on board during the review.”

PERFORMANCE

In 2022, at least 345,695 candidates (173,761 males and 171,934 females) appeared for the UCE examination compared to 330,592 candidates in 2020. Of the total candidature, 721 were Special Needs Education (SNE) candidates (389 males and 332 females) compared to 519 in 2020.

They comprised the blind (39), those with low vision (115), deaf (87), dyslexics (88), and physically handicapped (94). There were 308 candidates with other forms of disability that needed extra time to write their examination. All SNE candidates were allowed extra 45 minutes for each paper.

Just like at PLE, the board noted the low performance of deaf candidates with the majority under division four. Out of the 120 deaf candidates, only five passed in division one. Division two and three had 10 candidates each while the majority (74) passed in division four. The deaf also registered the highest failure rates at 21 (17.5%) compared to the other categories of special needs.

Overall, Uneb noted an impressive performance for SNE candidates, especially those with low vision who registered the highest number of candidates in divisions one and two at 41 and 38 respectively out of the 154 who sat the examination.

In the first division category, they are followed by the physically handicapped with 22 candidates, the deaf came in third place with five, dyslexic were four, and two blind candidates. At PLE, out of the 263 deaf candidates who sat for the examination, none got a first grade.

Fifty passed in division two, 41 in division three, and 56 in division four. At least 116 deaf candidates were ungraded. SNE experts have since urged the education ministry to adopt the use of a bilingual teaching – involves the use of sign language and writing skills for deaf learners to upgrade their performance.

EXPERT ANALYSIS

The head of department [hearing impairment and sign language interpretation studies] at the faculty of Special Needs and Rehabilitation at Kyambogo University, Dr Sam Lutalo- Kiingi, urged the government to make use of the Ugandan sign language as a mode of instruction for deaf learners.

“Deaf learners must at all times wait for a well-organized setting for them to learn as opposed to other learners who can learn incidentally, anywhere. This is because we don’t have a society of signers. At least 90 per cent of deaf learners are born to hearing parents which delays their cognitive abilities to a larger extent,” Lutalo-Kiingi said.

As Uneb plans to examine sign language as a subject next year, he said the education ministry ought to “carefully” transfer special needs teachers as well as retool ordinary teachers.

“The transfer of teachers has proved to be another challenge for learners. By the time a teacher has picked up in a special school for deaf learners, they are being transferred to another school. The ministry appoints another ordinary teacher from a school of hearing learners without the requisite skills to learn on the job. This is a lot of time being wasted for deaf learners who are always eager to learn to improve their performance,” Lutalo- Kiingi, who’s also deaf and a senior lecturer at Kyambogo, said.

nangozi@observer.ug