UCE 2021: Valley College candidates cautiosly optimistic to shine

Bernard Ngabirano, reports.

Busheny: Today senior Four  candidates across the country started their Uganda Certificate of Education – UCE examinations with Physics Paper Three practicals in the morning and Fine Art in the afternoon.

At Valley College Bushenyi, visitors are welcomed by a magnificent monument of a dove holding a grass in its bill symbolizing humility of the learners and the Valley community.

Here, exams started normally and Standards Operating Procedures (Sops) were observed both in examination rooms and outside with sanitized hanwash water tanks positioned allover the school compound.

Some of the students who talked to Parrots UG expressed their readiness to shine in this year’s UCE examination and retaining the long built Valley College academic glory.

Douglas Twinomujuni, a candidate who sat for the morning paper told Parrots UG that he didn’t have any complaints about the exam since most of the questions asked had been covered in class and discussion groups. He hopes other exams will be simpler.

Another student who did not disclose her names said candidates were not given enough time to prepare for the examination such as holding internal and external academic seminars with other schools due to precedents of COVID-19 something that may affect candidate’s performance.

Citing out subjects with practical examinable areas such as Geography, Agriculture and Biology which may require study Field works in different places like demonstration farms, geographical field tours, to mention but a few, the candidate is more concerned with how examiners will judge learners as this area was not covered by many schools.

A total of 24 students are sitting for UCE exams at Valley College, in Bushenyi district.

According to statistics by Uganda National Examinations Board – UNEB, a total of 333,766 students are registered to sit for the 2021 UCE exams. These include: 166,294 males constituting 49 percent and 167,481 females constituting 51 percent of the total number of candidates.

Jennipher Kalule, the Uganda National Examination Board Public relations officer told Parrots UG that the body had already dispatched all the examination materials to all centres and the examination centres in hard to reach areas had received their materials today by 7:30AM.

In related news, UNEB is seeking an additional sh10.465 billion to be able to observe Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for the prevention of spread of COVID-19  during examinations that started today.

The body’s Executive Secretary Dan Odongo, said UNEB is still waiting for a supplementary budget as passed by parliament to facilitate for SOPs in examination centres during marking.

The 2021 UCE exams started today Monday March 1st with Physics Paper Three practicals in the morning and IPS Fine Art Still Life/Nature paper in the afternoon and they will end on April6,2021 with Technical Drawing, Electrical practicals among other subjects.