UACE exams kick off smoothly

EXAMS | UACE

The Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) examinations yesterday kicked off smoothly across the country.

In schools the New Vision team visited, candidates had started writing their examinations by 9:00am, beginning with History (paper three) in the morning and Mathematics (paper one) in the afternoon.

At Lakeside College Luzira, a total of 165 candidates sat for the exams. Only one student, a one Rogers was not able to sit after falling sick at the beginning of the term.

Samuel Kyewalyanga, the head teacher of the school said the examinations started smoothly because the examinations papers were delivered on time and the papers were enough.  

"The process of picking examinations at Jinja road police station has become easy and organised since they deployed a military officer at the station two weeks ago. When people who give us examination papers are organised, schools are also able to start on time," he said.

At Crane High School Kitintale, examination papers were also delivered on time and students were able to start writing their papers in time.

Moses Ategeka, the examinations master at the school, said out of the 147 candidates that registered, only one student did not turn up to write his final exams due to family problems.

PIC: Police spokeperson Asan Kasingye said officers have been deployed countrywide to ensure there is no cheating as was the case with O'level exams

Stephen Kalibbala, the headteacher of Pride Academy S.S Kisugu, a Kampala suburb said 41 candidates registered for the exams, and one disappeared out of the blue on the examination day.

He revealed that 41% of the students at the school had not completed paying their school fees, but because of the UNEB law that allows them to sit for exams provided registration fee is paid for, they are in for exams.

"UNEB should put a mechanism to help schools recover their money," Kalibbala lamented.

At Kololo Secondry School in Kampala exams kicked off as scheduled with no  interruptions.

According to the headteacher, Edward Kamanya, the exams started at exactly 9:00am with all the 170 registered candidates.

It was a similar case with City High School, the head teacher, Andrew Lyau, described the exercise as punctual with no unique cases of interruption, not even examination delay.

PIC: Omar Ozelle (left), a deathrow inmate, congratulates fellow candidates soon after sitting for their Mathematics paper. (Credit: Petride Mudoola)

Prison
At Uganda Government Upper Prison Secondary School, a total of 24 inmates sat for their UACE, which started in time.

Gilbert Niwamanya, the headteacher of the school, said 25 candidates were registered for this year's UACE, but 24 managed to sit for their final paper.He explained that one of the candidates was released, but did not come back to sit his final exams.

Police speaks out
Police spokesperson Asan Kasingye said officers have been deployed countrywide to escort papers to various police stores to ensure there are no cases of leakages from the stores.

He further revealed that criminal investigations detectives (CIDs) have been deployed  to ensure quick responce to any examination malpractices.

"All our units have been informed to be alert. We want to safe guard against malpractices to what happened during O'level examinations does not occur again," said Kasingye.

Teachers and students were recently arrested after Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) examinations leaked on social media.