Government counsels P.7 leavers on admission

Parents whose children were not admitted to their first choice government schools should not worry because they can still get placements in private schools that did not take part in the selection exercise.

Speaking at the closing of the two-day National Senior One Selection exercise in Kampala yesterday, assistant commissioner for secondary education, Mr Francis Agula, said 3,000 private secondary schools had not participated in the exercise.

“When we look at our records there are also some 3,000 private schools that have skipped this exercise and we direct them to absorb all those who missed admission. If each of them takes like 40 students, we’re optimistic that no one will be left out,” he said.

According to the Selection Committee records, 1,900 secondary schools and 62 technical colleges participated in the exercise.

Government schools and partner institutions took only 316,980 Senior One entrants out of the 480,067 candidates who passed last year’s PLE. This implies 163,087 were left out.

About 156,900 students were admitted to Universal Secondary Education institutions, 131,100 in USE private schools, 3,240 in USE BTVET government and partnering institutions, while 25,740 will join the non-USE government-aided schools.

Mr Agula said although the number of those admitted looks smaller; it was the highest to enter Senior One in the country’s history.

Last year, out of the 444,815 candidates who were eligible to join Senior One, only 331,360 gained admission, leaving out 113,455 despite having obtained the required aggregate.

Education Minister Jessica Alupo said 288,000 P.7 leavers will study under the free secondary education scheme this year.

“I want also to make it clear that the capitation grants which have been coming quarterly will be wired to our accounts before the school term opens. We have engaged Ministry of Finance officials on that and they are going to implement it.”

Mr Martin Omagor-Loican, the chairman of the selection committee, implored school heads to be considerate and admit candidates with aggregates slightly above preferred cut-off aggregates.

But many head teachers that the Sunday Monitor spoke to said they had been overwhelmed by the number of applications.

assenkabirwa@ug.nationmedia.com