Prime
2,000 foreign students to sit A-Level exams today
Students of Mbale Senior Secondary School in Mbale District do their examinations recently. FILE PHOTO
What you need to know:
Tight schedule. The Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education exams will be conducted between 12 and 30 November while Business Technical Vocational Education and Training exams will be done from November 12-16.
A total of 2,000 students from Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and South Sudan will be sitting their Uganda Advanced Certificate Examinations (UACE), which officially kicks off today.
Briefing journalists about the exams in Kampala on Saturday, Mr Dan Odong, the deputy executive secretary Uganda Examinations Board, revealed that the students from other East African countries had registered for the exams at the 1,485 exams centres spread across the country.
A total 111,581 candidates registered to sit Senior Six exams this year, up from 103,760 in 2011, indicating an increase in registration of more 7,821 students.
Mr Odong said about 90 students with special needs (lame, blind, deaf) registered for the exams and the body had dispatched a special team of invigilators to aide their examinations in the four schools in the country.
The examinations commenced last Friday with briefing and candidates today will sit Biology and Economics papers in the morning and afternoon respectively.
Another 13,919 students registered for the Business Technical Vocational Education and Training under Uganda Junior Certificate, Community Polytechnic Exams and Craft 1, 11 & 111 in 212 centers, down from 22037 students in 2011.
Uneb Executive Secretary, Mathew Bukenya unveiled the new arrangements, where random numbers will be issued to each UACE centre andthesewill be used by candidates instead of the usual centres numbers.
He added that, there will be a different random number for every session though the candidates will not change. “The is a pilot project that started last year and if it is successful, it will be rolled out to all levels of examinations.”
This new arrangement, according to Bukenya, is aimed at minimising cases of exam malpractices. A total of 500 scouts have been dispatched to monitor the conduct of exams.
Public schools
However, 879 private schools implementing government’s free education have not received this term’s capitation grants from government and are crying foul on how the exams will be conducted.
Government pays Shs47,000 for each student under Universal Secondary Education every term and Shs85,000 is allocated to each private learner under the newly introduced Universal Post-O’level Education and Training programme per semester.
