Every university should adopt pre-exams for all programmes

On April 14, the Makerere University’s Faculty of ICT was full of activity with applicants from all walks of life converging to take the pre-entry Law exams, a prerequisite for admission to the Law course at Makerere University. I have over the years supported a young girl who might, subject to her success in the exams, enrol for the course.
I always walk her through the steps of life because despite being my brother’s daughter, she has grown with me. She passed with 15 points at A-Level and as I had promised her, I would be with her during these exams so that probably, she could have an extra motivational push to perform and qualify for the Law course.
Sitting these exams was fun and challenging. The day-to-day events, the reading comprehension, the analytical writing and quantitative bit all bring a challenging reminder to how you can never have enough time for exam preparation and that each exam is as teasing as the past ones.
The antonyms and sentence completions with seemingly close resembling answers challenge not only critical thinking but depth in detailed examination of facts.
The examination captures current affairs in a way that a foreign student would not be privileged to sail through. How would one coming from Kenya, for example, know the name of the president of the Uganda Law Society?
Then as if to ensure that we all get interested in national issues, typical questions relating to sports and health are asked. They asked about who the IGP is and I wondered how my brother from Tanzania answered the question.
Given that my learned friends usually challenge me to discuss issues from a wider viewpoint, I wish to commend Makerere University leadership led by Vice Chancellor Prof Barnabas Nawangwe for upholding this high standard and advise policy makers at the Education ministry to adopt this as a framework to gauge each university student’s readiness for self-governance at entry into the university.
It builds on the depth of a human resource one is capable of becoming before university and consolidates knowledge that defines one after university education.
This is an ongoing practice in many graduate admission programmes in the West. Therefore, I would recommend that every course should include this component. It is also my prayer that a digitised computer-based approah is adopted.
Bernard Omuse,
[email protected]