The academic progress of about 3.7 million learners in primary and secondary institutions across the country remains unknown after their respective schools failed to promote them to the next class under the new system that was rolled out last year by the Ministry of Education.
The Ministry directed schools across the country last year to register all their learners on the new Education Management Information System (EMIS), which is designed to facilitate learner promotions from one class to another, among other functions.
The commissioner of education planning, Robert Bellarmine Okudi, who read the permanent secretary’s speech at a media training, stated that to date, a total of 11.5 million learners out of the expected 15 million have been uploaded onto the system.
Out of these, 10.2 million learners were uploaded by December 2022, while 1.3 million new learners have been uploaded since the beginning of this year, resulting in a total of 11.5 million.
However, out of the 11.5 million learners who were uploaded last year, 6.5 million learners have been promoted to their next classes this year on the EMIS. This implies that 3.7 million learners have not been promoted to the next class on the system.
He said that when you add the promoted learners (6.5m) and the newly uploaded learners this year (1.3m), this totals to 7.8 million learners reflected in the system as of this year, hence 3.7 million learners are in the system but not in class.
Okudi indicated that one might think the learners dropped out of schools, but he did not rule out the fact that some head teachers did not update the status of their learners on the system this year.
When contacted yesterday, the chairperson of the National Private Education Institution Association (NPEIA), Mr. Hasadu Kirabira, attributed the mismatch in the numbers of students who are supposed to be promoted to the failure of the Ministry to sensitize schools on how to continuously use the system.
