Moses Kidega, the Deputy Head-teacher of Gulu College School, a private aided institution disclosed that of 141 candidates registered to sit UCE, only 78 had partially cleared the school dues while 63 were still struggling to look for fees worth over 20 million shillings.
Schools in Gulu
City have decried financial difficulties due to uncollected fees from students
sitting the Uganda Certificate of Education – UCE exams.
In 2019, the First Lady Janet Kataha Museveni who is also the
Minister of Education and Sports said asked school administrators not to stop
any student who is registered by Uganda National Examinations Board – UNEB from
sitting their final papers.
A section of school administrators notes that the extended
lockdown measures imposed by the Government to contain the spread of the global
Coronavirus Disease – COVID-19 had a far-reaching financial impact on them.
Moses Kidega, the Deputy Head-teacher of Gulu College School, a
private aided institution disclosed that of 141 candidates registered to sit
UCE, only 78 had partially cleared the school dues while 63 were still
struggling to look for fees worth over 20 million shillings.
Kidega also explained that they lost over 50 candidates during the COVID-19
lockdown. He explained that some students were transferred away to other
schools while others dropped out, which could be impacted negatively on their
financial steadiness.
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Irene Mwaka, the Head-teacher of Gulu Senior Secondary School, a
government-aided school revealed that they are equally faced with the same
financial predicament. Mwaka disclosed that the school hasn’t received
capitation grant releases from the Education Ministry.
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Overall, Gulu Secondary School has over 2,000 students’ population. According
to the Mwaka, of those, 408 are candidates sitting the on-going UCE exams and
over 90 million remains uncollected from the parents of the school.
Concy Auma, a parent and market vendor in Gulu City whose daughter
is sitting the UCE exams says the global pandemic has impacted negatively
businesses and raising school fees has become so difficult than ever which
explains why several parents have delayed offset school dues.
The situation is the same across all the 29 UCE schools in Gulu City that are
participating in the national exams that commenced on Monday. Up to 333,889
candidates from across 3,935 centres in Uganda are sitting the national exams.
