The Ministry of Education and Sports has defended the recently concluded electronic registration of students ahead of final examinations at Uganda National Examination Board (UNEB) despite concerns by lawmakers that students from the rural schools will be left out due to limited electricity and internet access.
Leading the defending was Denis Obua, Minister of State for Sports during Thursday 7th July plenary sitting in which he was responding to a question raised by Patrick Nsamba (Kassanda North) on why Government was hell-bent on implementing the new electronic registration of candidates for PLE, UCE and UACE yet it had proved to be slow and costly for candidates given the limited access to electricity and internet in some parts of the country.
While responding to the question, Obua said that the online registration of candidates isn’t a new system and that it has been used to successfully register candidates since 2015. He further stressed that the same system has proved to be faster, more accurate and cheaper than the old-manual which was laborious. The old system required students to fill many forms that head teachers would be required to carry to UNEB, forcing many teachers to spend days camped in Kampala waiting for their turn at UNEB offices to hand in students forms.
Obua explained: “Uganda as a country is embracing e-governance to improve service delivery to our people. Online registration by UNEB is a contribution towards better and cheaper services rendered towards its clients, the schools and its candidates. Indeed the examination centres haven’t indicated a lack of internet access as hindrance to the registration process.”
The Minister further informed Parliament that the online registration system was conducted successfully up to 30th June 2022 and 1,182,073 students were able to register for all the levels of final exams and of these, 647828 constituting 51 are female 632813 are males.
However, a number of lawmakers like Joseph Ssewungu (Kalungu West) were not convinced.
“And we said that because of the constraints you are facing, let the two move hand in hand; however, UNEB has never taken training of these teachers. That’s why I said that let us have the two move on concurrently for those who can afford to move on and those who can’t like Karamoja used the old system. I have been to Karamoja. You can hardly find a place with a computer system,” he said.
Veronica Nanyondo (DWR Bukomansimbi) asked the Minister to explain what modalities the Government had for rural schools without internet and electricity access.
She said: “The issue of electronic registration, I don’t know if you have followed it in rural areas where you find that in the school there is only one teacher with a smart phone, with no computer and to get data, it is very difficult. There is an extra charge that teachers ask from parents so as to get data. In addition, electricity isn’t there, they can spend 1-2 days without a battery. What is the Ministry doing for those schools, are you planning anything or they’re going to be left out?”
Fredrick Angura (Tororo South County) informed Parliament that recently some students missed out on registration because they sat for PLE years ago and their data wasn’t in the system, prompting UNEB to reject their forms and therefore urged the Ministry of Education to accommodate the two systems.
However, Speaker Among asked MPs to lead the sensitisation process of ensuring the electorates embrace the digitisation of Uganda remarking; “As Members of Parliament, let us move away from analogue to digital, that must be a plan, don’t remain where you’re. We should be thinking of how to help our country go digital.”