The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has issued new rules and guidelines that must be followed by schools and candidates during the exam registration process. The new measures include public display of all registered candidates.

According to Dan Odongo, UNEB executive director, the new provision was put in place, among other things, to ensure that parents and learners are informed of their registration status earlier.

Previously, some head teachers have been fond of misusing students’ registration fees, leaving the affected candidates stranded on the day of examinations. However, the new UNEB Act 2021, which was passed last year in April, gave the board powers to direct all schools and UNEB centres to display registered candidates for a period of 60 days.

Odongo said registers will be displayed in a visible place accessible by any interested party, including but not limited to parents, candidates, district officials, and any other authorities.

“The display can be made on the school notice board or outside the school. For primary schools, the list should also be available on all community notice boards around and in the district. The slips on display will be from UNEB and will have security features to ensure that they are not forged,” said Odongo.

Rose Nabukenya Mukasa, the principal examination officer at UNEB said, it is during this time that parents of students who are studying in schools that have UNEB status numbers are urged to find out whether their children are duly registered. Nabukenya added that during the same period, headteachers, parents, and candidates will also be correcting any anomalies in the information details of the candidate.

Concerned parties are advised to cross-check candidates’ names and spelling, candidates’ photographs, date of birth, photos of candidates, and subjects offered by the learners. If there is any anomaly noticed, it should be brought to the attention of the board, said Nabukenya. Over the years, many people have made mistakes, more so in their names and subjects offered.

For instance, last year, several students at Wakiso School for the Deaf realized that they had registered for a different paper on the day of the examination, which created challenges in the processing of their results.

Odongo said that after this process is handled, all the candidates’ data will be presumed to be correct and no further changes shall be made. He adds that the display exercise will be conducted countrywide at the end of the registration period starting from August 1 to September 30, this year.

He added that the board has also put a provision for verifying the registration status of a candidate using the short messaging service (SMS) for parents who might not be to travel to schools where their children are enrolled.

Meanwhile, the board has scheduled dates for the national examinations in 2022. Schools have until May 31 to register their children for all three sets of exams, according to Odongo. The registration portals began on February 2, giving schools three months to register their students in order to avoid paying a late registration charge.

The board has also set June 30 as the deadline for late registration of students who may have missed the usual registration deadline for a variety of reasons. However, there will be a 100 per cent surcharge at the primary level and a 50 per cent surcharge at the secondary level.

According to the roadmap, the examination period will run from October to November as it was done pre-COVID-19 school closures. S.4 candidates are expected to sit for their examinations between October 14 and November 18, P.7 candidates from November 7 to 9, while S.6 will start their examination on November 18 and conclude it on December 9.