By George Bukenya
Although Arts teachers continue with their industrial action, Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) have commenced on well according to UNEB Principal Public Relations Officer Jennifer Kalule.
The Minister of State In charge of Higher Education Dr. John C. Muyingo also retaliated the UNEB’ s stance re-affirming that although the teachers strike is ongoing, examinations progress is not affected so far.
Dr. Muyingo said that he made a tour as his weekly routine in some schools and found teachers teachers as opposed to media reporting.
Real writing of examinations starts today with Geography Paper I although briefing of candidates occurred on Friday last week. Atotal of 432,159 candidates registered to seat UCE examinations and of these 52.7% are females, while 47.3 % are males and 6779 are candidates with special needs.
While addressing reporters at Naguru Police Headquarters, Kalule said that the examination body has deployed the necessary man power to man Examinations throughout the country and that the industrial strike will not affect the exercise.
“ Examinations Scouts and Invigilators are volunteers therefore cannot refuse to man examinations because of the industrial strike, we even pay them just allowances,’’ Kalule informed the reporters.
She further said that, to oversee the safe conduct of examinations throughout the country, UNEB has deployed a total of 1,452 scouts, about 20,000 invigilators and 546 security personnel to help with supervision.
“ We have had a successful start countrywide, without any major disruptions. The weather has been good, and we were able to deliver all the examination materials to all stations on time.’’
Kalule also called on schools which have not yet uphold the continuous assessment result to the UNEB system to utilize the window allowed and do so because they make part of the overall assessment results and according to the new curriculum, no candidate will be finally assessed by the board without such results.
The National Examining body also warned the public against dealing with fraudsters who out there trying to trick unsuspecting members of the public for they risk being caught up by the stringent law.
“ Specifically, the public is cautioned against unauthorized possession on any material, content, or information purported to be a UNEB examination paper. This includes online sharing and being in possession of an electronic version of any such material.’’
Under Section 24 and 25 of the UNEB Act, CAP 259 asserts that anyone found with such content, whether it’s the right paper or not, commits an offence and on conviction is liable of a fine of UGX 20 million or spent five years in prison or both.