According to Rwanda’s National Examinations and Schools Inspection Authority (NESA), a total of 452,053 candidates from across the country are due to sit their national examinations over a period spanning six weeks, from June 14 through July 30.

This will be the first time national exams are held in two years after schools were closed and national examinations called off last year due to the Covid-19 fiasco.

Up to 254,678 candidates will write primary leaving examinations, representing a drop of 11 per cent from 286,087 candidates in 2019.

For O-Level, 122,320 students will sit exams, representing an increase of 2 per cent from the 2019 numbers when 119,932 candidates wrote their exams.

There was also an increase in the number of A-Level candidates, equivalent to 1.7 per cent, up to 52,145 from 52,291 in 2019. There was, however, a decline in science candidates from 15,251 in 2019 to 14,785, representing a difference of 3.1%.

Under the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) system, 21,053 students will sit their national exams. In TVET, there was an increase in the number of candidates, with 19,862 students writing their final papers last time around.

In addition, a total of 1,857 private candidates will sit S.6 exams, up from 1584 candidates in 2019.

TVET practical examinations will be the first to be conducted, from June 14-July 3.

For primary candidates, NESA has allocated 1018 examination centers nationwide, 0-Level exams will be held at 547 centers, A-Level 418 centers, and TVET 97 centers.

Asked about the staggering, director-general OF NESA, Bernard Bahati, spoke on the drop in primary school candidates, with 31,409 fewer pupils set to do national exams this year compared to 2019 which he attributed to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Primary candidates are due to sit their exams from July 12-14, O-Level, A-Level (theory) and TVET (theory) from July 20-27, and A-Level (science practicals) July 28-30.

According to Uganda’s revised academic calendar, learners are expected to return to school on July 19 to complete the academic year.

President Museveni on Sunday closed all institutions of learning, less than a month after Senior One and Senior Two learners had reported back to school.

Semi-candidate classes and P.1 to P.3 were slated to return to school on June 7 for their promotional term of the 2020 academic year.

 The new circular by the ministry’s permanent secretary, Alex Kakooza, indicates that they plan to reopen schools for learners who had not completed their 2020 academic year on July 19.

This means that P.1, P.2 and P.3 pupils, who have spent one year and two months at home, are expected to report on July 19 and break off on September 3.

The semi-candidates (P.6, S.3 and S.5) will also report on July 19 and break off on August 3.

S.1 and S.2 students are expected to report on July 19 and break off on August 13 and September 3, respectively.

All the students reporting on July 19 will study for about one-and-a-half months, sit for promotional exams and will start the 2021 academic year on September 20 with P.4 and P.5 learners who had completed their promotional exams before schools were closed.

Kakooza said to ensure equity in the provision of education in the country, no school shall carry out promotions outside the above official timetables on the pretext that some learners attended private lessons and are, therefore, ahead of the rest.

He explained that Senior One and Senior Two learners, who had just reported back to schools before the closure, will complete the remaining part of the term without paying additional schools fees in case they had already completed the interrupted term fees.

Kakooza said semi-candidates, who were expected to report on June 7 for a special term, will report and pay fees proportional to the short term.

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) may conduct a second 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination for candidates with genuine registration challenges.

The Registrar of the board, Is-haq Oloyede, made the disclosure in Lagos while monitoring profiling of candidates with 2021 UTME registration challenges.

Oloyede said so far, there are about 17, 758 candidates with challenges that had been profiled, nationwide.

He said at the end of the entire exercise, the board may have to conduct another examination for those with genuine cases after the main UTME slated for June 19 to July 3.

He reiterated the board’s commitment to ensuring that every Nigerian child desirous of tertiary education would be given an equal opportunity.

He is quoted as saying “Since I came here this morning and interacted with candidates, I have discovered that most of them are largely unserious and are basically the cause of most of their challenges.

Over 500,000 candidates had claimed they were unable to register for the examination within the given time frame – before May 15. JAMB later extended the registration to May 29.

The candidates cited inability to generate a profile code and difficulty in obtaining the National Identification Number (NIN).

JAMB had insisted that no candidate would be allowed to sit for the examination without providing the NIN.

Following the challenges, the board allowed a two-week window for the affected people to lodge their complaints at its offices or registration centres and get help.

Addressing journalists later, the JAMB official called on state ministries of education to regulate activities of tutorial centres as a strategy to save the education sector from collapse.

He said that activities of some tutorial centres remained a hindrance to efforts at sanitising the country’s education system, adding that utorial centres are a haven for examination malpractice

He regretted that some parents were patronising them with delight, while calling on the parents to learn to allow their children and wards go through the normal process of learning so that they can be psychologically mature for tertiary education.

He said “In order to show the nation that the problem of registration is not what a section of the media is painting it to be, we came up with this initiative of asking all candidates with genuine excuses to visit our offices nationwide.”

The registrar said through the process, JAMB discovered that some candidates went as far as using their bank verification numbers in a bid to get their profile codes rather than the NIN.