Government releases district university allocations

Jun 05, 2012

Kampala district with the highest population will be allocated 23 slots under the newly set quota university admissions, compared to those with the lowest populations that have been given six slots each.


By Conan Businge

Kampala district with the highest population will be allocated 23 slots under the newly set quota university admissions, compared to those with the lowest populations that have been given six slots each.

Each of the 122 districts in the country was fi rst allocated five slots under the quota system, and the remaining 896 slots distributed on the basis of each district’s populations.

Kampala has a population of about 1.7 million people. Wakiso with 1.3 million people has been given 18 slots, while Arua with 716,900 people has been allotted 12 slots like Kibaale district which has an estimated 681,300 people.

Other districts with 10 slots, and among those with the biggest slice of the admissions, include Kasese, Mubende, Yumbe, Kamuli, Rakai, Mukono, Ntungamo, Mayuge, Hoima, Iganga, Tororo, and Luweero.

This expunges the argument that the new quota admissions system is meant to benefi t only well-off urban districts of Uganda. Several rural districts are among those with the highest number of slots in the country.

The Public Universities Joint Admissions Board and Uganda National Examinations Board (PUJAB) has already been advised by the education ministry to give out scholarships under the specifi ed allocations.

The education ministry’s permanent secretary, Francis- Xavier Lubanga, said: “I have written to PUJAB, to use the new system of allocating slots for the quota admissions.”

Names of students chosen for the quota system will be sent to the respective districts, in a few days’ time for verifi cation. The list of students admitted under the quota system, will be released in the course of this month.

But there are other 19 districts with the lowest number of slots, fi xed at six. A big number of the districts will get nine, eight and seven slots. The analysis also shows that districts which were sub-divided recently have benefitted greatly from the new arrangement.

A case in point is Iganga district, from which Luuka district was curved recently. Luuka with 260,900 people has been allocated eight slots while Iganga with 444,300 has 10 slots, amounting to 18 slots. Assuming they had not been separated, Iganga whose total population would be 705,200 would have got only 12 slots.

In 2005/06, there were 56 districts and each received 16 slots. The following year, the districts rose to 81 and each got 11 slots. Last year, there were 112 districts in the country and each got eight slots.

The district quota system of administration started in 2005/2006 to address the inequitable access to university education by students hailing from various districts.

This was because the selection of students sponsored by the Government was primarily based on academic merit. The situation attracted considerable criticism from members of the public who argued that admission on merit only considered
students from rich families, who go to expensive schools. Such schools, as a fact, have competent teachers and many resources at their disposal.

The education and sports ministry was tasked with developing a system that would take care of the eligible candidates from all the districts. It was also supposed to target programmes critical to national development and social transformation with emphasis on science technology and mathematics.

Additional reporting by Juliet Waiswa
 

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});