KAMPALA: More candidates have registered for this year’s Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) examinations compared to those of 2020, latest data shows.
The Executive Director of UNEB, Dan Odongo, said the number of candidates registered at all levels has increased from 1,182,073 in 2020 to 1,279,962 for this year.
“A total of 1,279,962 have registered for all the three levels of the final examinations. This was by the time of closure for late registration of candidates that ended at midnight hour of June 30, 2022,” Odongo said in a July 1 statement.
Odongo revealed that at Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) level, the number of registered candidates has increased from 749,809 in 2020 to 832,702 while at the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) level, the number increased from 333,873 to 349,324 during the same period.
According to UNEB, the number of candidates registered for this year’s Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) level has slightly dropped to 97,936 from 98,392 in 2020.
A total of 715,360 (56 percent) of all the candidates are funded by government while 564,602 (44 percent) are privately sponsored.
The low figures registered during the year 2020 was attributed to the turbulences caused by COVID-19.
According to UNEB, national examinations will begin with UCE on October 14 to November 18 while UACE exams will begin on November 18 to December.
UNEB spokesperson Jennifer Kalule said registration officially ended on June 30 and that UNEB will not register any more candidates for the 2022 examinations.
“We gave them enough time to register. Normal registration started in February till the end of May and after that, we gave them a grace period of one week for normal registration. Late registration was conducted in June and ended last week. UNEB needs time to put together this data together,” she said.
She, however, said board will avail an opportunity to parents and candidates to confirm registration of learners. “This will require one to have a full index number of the candidate where they will use their phones to type the word ‘reg’ leave space, type in the index number and send to 6600. They will then receive a message confirming whether they were registered or not,” she said.
Kalule said the final list of candidates who have registered for this year’s examinations was displayed at respective examinations centres and districts so that the details of the candidates can be viewed and reviewed if necessary.
She said like late registration, correcting registration errors will attract a fee of UgShs.50,000
This year, late registration attracted a surcharge of 50 percent of the total registration fees at UACE and UCE levels and 100 percent surcharge at PLE level.
Under late registration, the registration fees increased from the normal fee of UgShs.34,000 to UgShs.68,000, for PLE candidates, UgShs.164,000 to UgShs.246,000 for UCE candidates and from UgShs.186,000 to UgShs.279,000 for UACE candidates.
