Police Warn Head Teachers Against Blocking Fees Defaulters From Sitting S.4 Exams

Police have warned head teachers against stopping Senior Four students, who have not paid tuition from sitting Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) examinations that start on Friday with briefing of candidates.

Addressing journalists at the offices of Uganda National Examination Board (UNEB) in Ntinda, Kampala on Thursday, police spokesperson Fred Enanga said they will intervene if any candidate is stopped from sitting exams over non-payment of tuition.

“We have instructed all our officers to ensure that all students who registered for the exams sit for them, whether they have paid their school fees or not. This was a requirement from UNEB. Therefore the head teachers should find means of dealing with parents of defaulters to clear the dues later,” Mr Enanga said.

He added that they will deploy over 1,800 police officers at all examination centres across the country  .

Mr Enanga said that the strict guidelines they have put in place are to ensure a smooth examination environment.

“We are going to deploy out territorial commanders to patrol all the UCE examination centres across the country to guard the exams and also  rule out any planned riots or strikes that might come up,” Mr Enanga said.

A total of 337,697 candidates are expected to sit UCE examinations from 1,832 centres across the country.

Mr Enanga also said police have instructed their officers to guard all the storage centres where examination papers are kept to ensure no one enters the room outside the time designated by UNEB.

The UNEB Executive Secretary, Mr Daniel Odongo, said that the briefing of all candidates across the country must be done by the heads of schools and they are slated to explain clearly to their students the rules and regulations regarding the conduct of the exams.

“It is very important that heads of centres conduct this briefing personally and not delegate to other members of staff. Experience in previous examinations indicates that breaches of rules and regulations by candidates occurred in centres where briefing was poorly done not done at all,” Mr Odongo said.

He added: “All heads of schools must inform the candidates of their responsibilities and draw their attention to the caution against examination mal-practise and the consequences of involvement in the act.”

Mr Odongo cautioned schools and candidates about the existence of fake papers that are being sold by unscrupulous and unprofessional teachers and other people purported to be UCE exams in Masaka and Kampala.

He said that these fake papers will disorient candidates since they will find questions they concentrated on are not on the actual examination papers.