EDUCATION: The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has today submitted a request for Ugandan Shillings 10.4 billion to facilitate P.7, S.4, and S.6 examinations under the prevailing Covid-19 situation and help it cope with encumbrances posed by the pandemic.
The UNEB Executive Secretary Dan Odongo made the appeal during a meeting with Parliament’s Budget Committee on Wednesday February 3, 2021.
Odongo disclosed to the legislators that a big chunk of this money will go towards ensuring observance of the set Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
Given the fatality of the Virus, he explained that the body has made arrangements to adequately space the 1,181,940 candidates who will be sitting their final exams.
“The distance has been 1.2 meters between one candidate and the next one. But in order to observe the SOPs, this distance will now increase from 1.2 to 2 meters. And therefore, each room or examination hall will now hold fewer candidates than previous,” Odongo disclosed.
However, he added, this undertaking will require more supervisors hence the need for additional funds.
“This is going to result in an average of 40% increase in the cost of supervision and invigilation since we have to hire more supervisors and invigilators. Hon. Chair, we will require an additional 33,360 invigilators,” Odongo stated further.
He also noted that UNEB has resolved to decongest its residential marking centers, a move that will also require funding.
“We have markers; about 19,000 of them for the three examinations and we have been putting them in 30 marking centers. To observe the social distancing measure, particularly, we will need to use an additional 10 marking centers,” he elaborated.
“Items for hand washing, temperature guns, sanitizers, need for extra personnel and for these items the total is Shs 322,200,000 making the entire budget 10.14 billion as requested,” Odongo concluded.
UNEB released the Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE), Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) and Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) timetables for the 2020/21 national examinations indicating that briefing of candidates in P.7 will be on March 26 and they will later sit for their examinations on March 30 and March 31 2021.
UCE exams will begin on February 26 with the briefing and first examination on March 1, to April 6.
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