Full list: 94,000 miss out on admission to Senior Five

Thursday, February 12, 2015 — updated on January 18, 2021

L-R: Mr Dauda Ssempogo of the Mashariki High School, Sr Matilda Apekuru of Warr Girls SS and Mr Godfrey Ndawula of Emmanuel College, Kampala, search through parcels containing lists of students at the start of the Senior Five selection exercise in Kampala yesterday. Photo by Abubaker Lubowa

Kampala. At least 94,133 Senior Four leavers have not been chosen in the selection process to join Senior Five this year.
According to figures from the Ministry of Education Selection and Placement Committee, out of the 284,022 candidates eligible to join Senior Five, only 189,889 gained admission.
This means that the 94,133 students who garnered the required marks for admission were left behind and now have to contend with the struggle to find places in private schools which did not participate in the selection exercise.
However, the figure is lower than the 137,000 students who missed admission last year. This can be attributed to the ministry directive to schools to admit beyond their capacity to cut down the number of those who usually miss joining schools of their choice.
Speaking at the opening of the selection exercise in Kampala yesterday, Mr Martin Omagor-Loican, the chairman of the selection committee, asked school administrators to reserve between five and 10 per cent of their slots under the ‘special’ admissions arrangement for children of government officials, members of foundation bodies and soldiers on foreign missions. This is the second year children of soldiers are given special consideration.
The 189,889 students selected were absorbed in 1,177 government and private schools. This is more than 124,334 who were admitted last year. Government-aided schools, which run the free A-level education, will admit 64,400 students this year, while privately-owned schools which implement the free education programme will admit 23,490 students, from 23,400 admitted last year. Another 19,150 students will join schools that are supported by the government but which do not operate the free A-Level programme. Another 10,849 will join the 98 vocational and teachers colleges.
Just how stiff competition for placement has been is demonstrated by King’s College, Budo which had 150 slots allocated to it and yet 1,645 students applied to join the school.
Explaining why many candidates missed admission for the fourth year running, Ms Elizabeth Gabona, the director Higher Education, said tight guidelines for the free A-level programme favour only candidates whose scores lie between Divisions One and Three.
Several head teachers said while many students were left out partly because of the good performance in last year’s UCE, the poor choices made by students indicating which schools they preferred to be admitted to also contributed to the failure to get placements.