30,000 students to sit technical exams today

More than 30,000 students offering technical and vocational courses are slated to start their final examinations today.

The Executive Secretary of the Uganda Business and Technical Examination Board (Ubteb), Mr Onesmus Oyesigye, said due to Covid-19, the students will sit their exams in two shifts in line with the standard operating procedures.

Addressing journalists at their offices in Kampala last Friday, Mr Oyesigye said: “Following the reopening of tertiary institutions on November 1, the board conducted successful online registration of candidates and other examination related processes. They have been prepared to sit for their exams starting today.”

Mr Oyesigye added that a total of 29,486 candidates from 354 centres will start their exams today.
These will do both theory and practical exams in two weeks’ time and finish on December 22.These are offering national and higher diploma and certificate technical courses as well as biological physical sciences.

The second batch of students are slated to sit the exams in January 2022 up to February 4. These are from Education, Business and Humanities.

Meanwhile, the number of female students slated to sit these exams remains low.
The 28,144 lined up to sit national, higher diploma and national certificates only 7,015 are female while 21,128 are males.

Similarly, out of the 1,342 slated to sit exams in Biological and Physical sciences, only 490 are females while 851 are males.

Mr Oyesigye said the number of female students, especially in technical courses, has remained low, because the perception that some jobs are only for male has persisted among the public.
This is the second set of examinations to be conducted by the board this year.

In March, the board conducted the exams for 2020 academic year that saw 15,019 students sit exams. Out of these, 11,334 (75 percent) passed the exams.

The board officials said there was a decline in performance of students who sat the 2020 exams compared to those who sat the 2019 by three percent.

The board attributed the 35 percentage failure rate on Covid-19 disruption on the education sector that saw students spend months at home while others failed to get internship placements.

Meanwhile, Mr Oyesigye said candidates are slated to improve their performance because they have spent some good time at the institutions.

Reopening schools...Tertiary institutions
Government cleared all tertiary institutions to reopen for learners on November 1 following their four-month closure due to Covid-19.

This means that these students have studied for about six weeks before sitting for exams.

Meanwhile, many tertiary institutions including universities have began their examinations for the academic year 2020/2021 but in a phased manner.