The two-day selection exercise for senior one that kicked off on Thursday in Kampala has attracted a number of school heads.
With the first term for senior one students set to begin on February 17, 2024, the scramble for placements for more than 700,000 learners who passed the 2024 Primary Leaving Exams kicked off in high gear at the Uganda Manufacturers Association grounds.
Over 3000 heads of schools gathered at the UMA grounds as Ministry of Education officials started allocating students to various secondary schools.
According to Education Ministry officials, the selection process involves school representatives receiving intake lists of students they intend to admit based on the required aggregates determined by the respective schools and recede three lists including one that contains students who meet the cut-off points for placement in their first-choice schools.
If a school’s cut-off points are 5 and a student put the school as their first choice, they will be admitted if they attained four or five aggregates but one who got six will not be admitted.
In the second batch are students who selected particular schools as their first choice but were not admitted due to limited slots or failure to meet the required points and the third one contains unplaced candidates as a result of errors in the application process
On several occasions, top schools set high cut-off points and this limits the number of candidates they admit.
Usually, the cut-off points are determined by the performance during that particular year, the number of candidates who applied to that school and its capacity.
Each school has to inform the ministry of its capacity before the selection exercise kicks off.
The ministry then does the selection based on the number of candidates who put that particular school as their first choice.
If a school for example gave 300 as its capacity but received 3000 applications, only the top 300 accordance to performance will be selected.
The development comes on the backdrop of the poor performance by Kampala schools in the 2024 PLE.
UNEB results indicated that Kampala recorded an unusually high number of candidates who either failed or scored below the expected grade for transition to secondary school.
Since the release of the PLE exams, the performance of candidates has sparked debate among educationists and the public, with some attributing the results to the poor financial status of teachers who educate their children.
Parents have pointed to a range of factors contributing to the dismal performance
“Many schools in Kampala faced challenges such as overcrowded classrooms, a lack of teaching materials, and frequent teacher absenteeism. Moreover, the increasing cost of living in urban areas has put pressure on parents, reducing their ability to provide adequate support for their children’s education,” one of the parents who preferred anonymity said.
Paul Mulwana, a resident of Nankulabye, attributed the poor performance to the lack of well-trained teachers.
“Some schools lack the necessary infrastructure to provide a conducive learning environment. There are also gaps in teacher training, and this has negatively affected the quality of education,” said Mulwana .
He added that the rise of unregulated private schools offering substandard education is another issue.
“Many parents opt for these schools due to their affordability, but critics argue that such institutions lack the capacity to deliver quality education,” Mulwana added.
LIST: Here are Kampala’s most performing schools in PLE 2024
