While thousands of candidates across the country were today briefed ahead of the Primary Leaving Examinations-PLE, the story was different at Okora primary school in Lukung Sub County, Lamwo district as no briefing took place because the school failed to raise candidates.
The school last year had 22 candidates in 2020 but only three came back after schools reopened for candidates after the long break occasioned by covid-19 outbreak.
The three candidates were however transferred to nearby schools by their parents leaving the school without a candidate.
Adong Nighty, the school head teacher said that they are disappointed because they had groomed the candidates from primary one only for their parents to transfer them to other schools.
Adong says they tried following up on the other candidates and found out that two girl got married while some transferred to other schools.
Ojoro Ben Washington, the Lamwo District Inspector of Schools says they are disappointed that the school failed to raise candidates for the 2020 PLE.
Okora primary school which has 18 pupils in primary six, was the third best in the 2019 PLE.
Meanwhile, Mega Fm has learnt that candidates from 50 primary schools-mainly in the rural areas in Lamwo district did not finish the syllabus.
Ojoro Ben Washington, the Lamwo district inspector of school said they are worried that this could greatly affect the performance of the district in national exam.
Some of the schools that did not finish the syllabus are Orii, Paracele, Lelabwul and Lalak primary school among others.
Lamwo district has a total of 69 primary schools that will be sitting for the primary leaving examination at 48 sitting centers across the district.
In Gulu City, the Education Department decided to extend briefing of candidates to tomorrow as they had to brief examination officials first.
Richard Irwenyo, the Gulu City Principal Education Officer said they could not jointly brief Gulu City exam officials with Gulu district exam officials yesterday because of covid-19 restrictions.
However, the one-day extension was welcomed by candidates from some of the schools like Labor Line Primary School in Pece Laroo Division who say it will give them more time to revise.
In Nwoya district, candidates at St Luke primary school in Anaka Sub County in Nwoya were advised to reside within the school to avoid arriving late for the exams.
In 2019, at least three primary seven candidates of St Luke primary school nearly missed the exams after they arrived two hours late for the first paper because of a heavy rainfall.
Akena Denis, the headteacher of the school while briefing the candidates today noted that the affected candidates did not heed to their call to reside in the school during the exams.
Some candidates at St Luke that spoke to Mega FM expressed optimism about performing well in the exam.
A total of 2,277 candidates have registered for the exams in Nwoya district.
Meanwhile, the Uganda National Examinations Board has warned schools not be tempted to carry out teaching of primary seven learners after today’s briefing session.
The examination body says that after briefing, no classes should be carried out.
This year, unlike before, learners have a one-day gap before they start exams.
Normally, briefing takes place on Friday and exams written the following week on Monday and Tuesday.
However, this year, the learners will sit their exams on Tuesday 30 and Wednesday 31 March.
Dan Odongo, the executive secretary of UNEB in a statement released today, did not direct that the learners stay home but cautioned schools against teaching them.
A total of 749,811 candidates are expected to sit for the examinations from 14,300 examination centres.
The candidates will write their exams on Monday starting with Mathematics in the morning, SST in the afternoon and finish the following day with Science in the morning and English in the afternoon.
