Govt universities hike admission points

 By Conan Businge

Makerere and other public universities have hiked entry points for almost all courses for Government-sponsored students for the forthcoming academic year.

The provisional cut-off points obtained from the Public Universities Joint Admission Board yesterday show that about 2,603 students are to be admitted under the Government sponsorship in Makerere,  Kyambogo, Busitema, Gulu and  Mbarara universities. These will be admitted under the merit admissions category.

The official Government admissions list is expected to be released soon.

About 1,500 more students will be admitted under the districts’ quota system and the affirmative action category in the coming month.

The cut-off points were raised  for admissions to most of the  science courses like architecture, telecommunication engineering, civil engineering, computer science, mechanical engineering, nursing and statistics.

For instance, a student needs  to have scored 51.3 points to be  admitted for pharmacy, which is  a hike from 48.3 last year.

Cut-offs are generated by  scoring all applicants, and later  ranking them in the order of  their performance; per course.

Basing on the required  number of students per course,  the person with the lowest  points in performance determines the cut-off mark.  

However, some courses had  their entry points slightly lowered.

Last year, the performance at  A’level slightly declined, meaning that a number of courses in  humanities (commonly known as arts), have had their entry points slightly reduced by the admissions board this year.

At Kyambogo University, the most competitive courses were civil engineering and building engineering, human nutrition and dietetics, telecommunication engineering, and economics and statistics.

At Mbarara University of Science and Technology, medicine and surgery and nursing were the most competitive courses, while at Gulu University ICT, development studies, and business administration and medicine and surgery were still the most competitive.

The top 10 courses with the highest number of candidates admitted on Government sponsorship were medicine and surgery, commerce (MUBS), arts with education (literature), arts in development economics, business administration (MUBS), science education (biological), science education (physical), agriculture, science with education and electrical engineering.

Almost all public universities introduced new courses. A few of the old courses which had been scrapped off Government sponsorship have also been reintroduced.

Among the new courses under Government sponsorship is information systems, software engineering, natural resource economics, water resource engineering, meteorology, biomedical sciences, and biotechnology.  

After ending the admission of students under Government sponsorship, the five public universities’ will start admitting students under the private sponsorship programme.

Makerere University plans to admit about 33,200 students under private sponsorship.

Makerere is expected to call for private students’ applications in a few days’ time.

The other public universities will also be expected to call for applications for private admission in the coming week.

Private universities kicked off admissions months ago, and some may continue admitting till late June.