Students warned against gambling their tuition fees

By Vivian Agaba

KAMPALA - Students have been warned against diverting their school fees into nonproductive activities like gambling and sports betting.

Last year, 55 students from Makerere Business Institute (MBI) failed to graduate after they reportedly gambled their tuition money.

It is such recklessness that Matovu Musoke – the Principal of Nakawa Technical Institute – is talking about.

He told journalists at the start of the Uganda Business and Technical Exams Board (UBTEB) exams this week that students who misuse their school fees normally bargain with school administrators to allow them into examination rooms.

Musoke said students also divert their fees into buying alcohol.

“At the beginning of the exams, we had a big number of students who had not cleared their school dues and this took us sometime to clear them. It is not because their caretakers did not give them the tuition [fees].

“They are given tuition but students invest it in sports betting, gambling and alcohol.”

The principal pointed out that as a consequence, some of this lot are forced to use their own money to clear the school dues – gambling being a win-or-lose affair – or at worst, drop out of school.
 

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A total of 33,635 candidates sat for the business and technical exams, which started with theory on Monday and followed by practical exams the following day.

Meanwhile, the executive secretary of UBTEB, Onesmus Oyesigye said the exams began successfully countrywide with limited hiccups.

There were no cases of delayed delivery of exams, he said.

He pointed out that there was a challenge of poor roads in the Karamoja region, although this hardly affected the delivery of exams, owing to early arrival by exam officials.

UBTEB’s Mary Gorrette Nabunya said they were notified of cases where candidates were not allowed to sit exams because had not completed their school dues.

 “These candidates paid registration fees and should be allowed to sit for the exams. We are in constant negotiation with the heads of these schools to allow students sit for their exams and can withhold their results when they are out so that they pay the school dues,” said Nabunya.


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