40 students in Mitooma to miss UCE exams over death of school director

As Senior Four candidates all over the country prepare to sit their Uganda Certificate of Examinations (UCE) on Monday, 40 students of St William Vocational Secondary School in Katenga Sub-county, Ruhinda County in Mitooma District are stranded after the school administration failed to register them.

Candidates paid up to Shs300,000 in fees and cleared Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) registration fees amounting to Shs166,000, which they handed over the school director William Mugume to kick-start the registration process. This was not done.
Mugume died on June 3 following an illness and his wife, Ms Mirian Kitengye is said to have taken over his roles.
Uneb allows late registration but students said they could not afford to pay more money. The school neither intervened.

“At the beginning of First Term, we paid Uneb registration fees of Shs166,000 to the school director, and we started preparing for our final examinations only to be told we had not been registered,’’ Chrispus Tindyebwa, a Senior Four student, said.
“After the death of our director, we got assurance that we would be registered,’’ he said.

The director of studies at the school, Mr Jordan Gumoshabe, said the late Mugume’s wife had limited knowledge of Uneb registration procedures.
He added: “As teachers, we, are not happy with the situation because the director has not helped much.’’
Mr Gumoshabe said when students learnt of the incident, they recorded a case against their director, who was arrested.
The senior inspector of schools in Mitooma District, Ms Jane Tushabe, said the district education department cannot intervene since registration of secondary school students is undertaken by Uneb.

“We have, however, wrote a letter to Uneb to help our students register but the head teacher had only Shs10 million from parents yet Uneb needed an extra Shs5 million,’’ Ms Tushabe said.
The resident district commissioner, Ms Addah Nasiima, said since the school had failed to register students, the school fees they were paying for Third Term should be used to clear registration of students so that they do not miss examina tions.

“After knowing that the students were not registered, we visited the school as stake holders in the district and decided that the money for Third Term should be used to pay for the registration of candidates. Parents accepted to mobilise the money but before they paid Shs120,000 according to earlier arrangement, they had put in more fines,’’ Ms Nasiima said
St Williams, which is registered by Uneb under centre number U2994, has since sent Senior Four students home since they are not going to sit for examinations.

The Uganda National Examinations Board extended late registration of candidates for this year’s primary and secondary examinations.
It was pushed to June 30. The normal registration period was on May 31, 2019.
The gap was to allow students verify their registration details such as index numbers, names to different subjects, among the others.

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