Senior Five schools hike entry points

PIC: Teachers from going through the list of Senior Four candidates during the selection process for the A'Level students inside the Uganda Manufacturers Association main hall in Kampala on Tuesday. (Credit: Godiver Asege)

EDUCATION

KAMPALA - Top-performing Senior Five schools in the country have hiked their entry points, basing on the Senior One selection process.

The Senior Five selection kicked off Tuesday inside the Uganda Manufacturers Association (UMA) main hall in Kampala.

The selection process, was officially opened by the state minister for higher education Dr. John Chrysostom Muyingo, shows that schools, such as St Mary's College Kisubi, St Mary's Kitende, King's College Budo, Uganda Martyrs Secondary School Namugongo and Light Academy all tightened by about two to three aggregates.

In the same bracket of such schools include Gayaza High School, Seeta High School, Naalya SS schools, Ndejje SS, Ntare School and St. Henry's College Kitovu.

As had been projected by New Vision in an earlier analysis when the Senior Four national examinations' results had just been released, the entry into Senior Five has been tightened.

The projection was based on the fact that the performance for Senior Four candidates this time had increased, coupled with the fact that the number of students who sat for the exams and those who excelled, had also gone up.

The candidates increased by 2,936 from 323,276 in 2016 to 326,212 in 2017. The candidates who passed in Division One increased by 2.4% and overall, the improvement was by about 4%.

There were also more students passing in Division One and Two and Three, compared to the previous year.

Almost half of the schools in the country have hiked their entry points because of the improved performance.

Important to note is that last year, a number of schools relaxed their entry points because the performance had declined. So, for two years consecutively, the performance in national Senior Four examinations had been declining; and so did the entry points into Senior Five.

The lesser the aggregate, the tighter the entry points. In this case, schools tightened their entry by taking students with more aggregate than those of 2016.

Criterion

Admission is on merit and original choices made by the candidates, based on eight best subjects performed by candidates in the Uganda Certificate off Education results or its equivalent.

Aggregate on eight subjects takes the precedence over combinations and choices, according to Benson Kule, the national chairperson of the selection process.

More so, the ministry's permanent secretary, Alex Kakooza, said: "If a candidate chooses a school as a second choice, but obtained a better total aggregate on eight subjects than a candidate of first choice, he/she is considered first, bearing in mind the three subjects which form a combination of A'level."

"In a mixed A'level boarding school, at least one-third of the intake should be of the minority sex," said Kakooza in a statement he signed.

It should also be noted that the placement or admission of any candidate is determined by the capacity of a school and choices made by the candidates, and the initial process is computer-generated; and never on the whims of the school heads.