UNEB Calls for Stronger Continuous Assessment to Safeguard Competency-Based Curriculum

What the report says

The Uganda National Examinations Board has called for stronger continuous assessment in schools as Uganda marks five years since introducing the competency-based curriculum at lower secondary level. UNEB said the approach is central to helping learners gain the knowledge, skills and values intended by the reforms, and warned that how it is handled in classrooms will shape the curriculum’s overall success.

UNEB Executive Director Dan Odongo made the remarks during the release of the 2025 National Assessment of Progress in Education report. He said continuous assessment should be treated as a core part of the curriculum, not an extra classroom task, and urged government, schools and other education stakeholders to improve its implementation. The report, he said, offers the first broad national picture of learner achievement under the new system since the last secondary assessment in 2014.

Odongo said the assessment is meant to provide evidence for policy, planning and curriculum improvement, and described it as an early warning tool that can show where the education system is doing well and where attention is needed. He noted that the findings point to performance gaps across regions and school categories, which he said should lead to targeted responses rather than blame.

More broadly, the report is expected to help policymakers review how the competency-based curriculum is working and identify steps to improve learning outcomes and fairness in education. Background knowledge: competency-based reforms generally place more emphasis on practical skills and ongoing evaluation than on one-off testing.