A total of 18 Senior Four candidates at Cream Field Vocational Senior Secondary School in Nakifuma, Mukono District, are stranded after learning that they were not registered for the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) examinations starting today, Monday, October 13.
When this reporter visited the school on Sunday afternoon, no staff member was present. The school administrators had reportedly gone into hiding, with their phones switched off.
The problem stems from the school’s failure to register the candidates with the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB), a requirement for sitting the national exams. Some of the affected candidates who spoke to the Monitor on Sunday said they discovered that they were not registered with UNEB on Friday, the day they were supposed to be briefed about the exams.
“We arrived at the school and no member of staff was available to brief us. When we contacted the head teacher, we received a shocking revelation that left us stunned,” Ryan Kizito, one of the affected candidates, said.
Despite paying all school dues, including examination fees, and diligently attending lessons and completing courseworks, the candidates are now facing an impossible situation due to the school’s negligence.
Kizito said the school administrators had earlier informed them that they were to sit their papers from a neighboring public school due to lack of a sitting centre number.
“What we have learned now is that only three of our colleagues are fully registered with UNEB and are the ones supposed to sit for the national exams,” he said.
Milly Nakyanzi, another affected candidate, shared her plight, saying they have struggled with academics, revealing that they have been revising notes on their own due to a lack of teachers.
“This, in the new curriculum, means we have to go back to Senior One if we miss sitting national exams,” she said, adding, “We have been lacking teachers and had to look for notes ourselves from other schools in addition to the feeding, which the school abandoned since the beginning of term.”
Parents, who cleared all school dues, stormed the school on Sunday to demand answers from the teachers, but all were absent.
Ms. Nassuuna Mazzi, a parent, expressed her frustration, saying she had paid all the school dues, including the registration fees, and wondered why her son wasn’t registered to sit the exams.
“I started smelling a rat the day we were called for dedication prayers, only to be told that it had been postponed, and to date, it was never conducted,” she said.
The consequences of the school’s failure to register the candidates are severe. If they completely fail to sit for the exams, they’ll have to repeat a whole year or potentially restart from Senior One, a significant setback for any student.
The affected candidates are understandably anxious, feeling their future is being put on hold due to circumstances beyond their control.
As the examination period kicks off, the affected candidates couldn’t help but wonder what the future holds for them.
In Uganda’s education system, the UCE exams are a critical milestone, determining a student’s academic future and career path.
On Monday, UCE candidates will write Geography Paper I in the morning and Biology Paper I (Theory) in the afternoon.
According to UNEB statistics, a total of 432,159 candidates are expected to sit for this year’s UCE exams at 4,308 centers across the country.