Uneb in financial crisis ahead of O level exams
February 22, 2021 Dan Odongo, Uneb executive secretary
Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) is battling financial challenges that might affect the preparation and management of 2020 final examinations.
According to sources in the examinations body, the board lacks funds to finance a number of activities ahead of the Uganda Certificate Examinations (UCE) scheduled to start on March 1.
“Everything is not well here. We have not received funds to operationalize the standard operating procedures (SOPs). Management requested for a supplementary, which was recently approved but the money has not been processed,” the source said.
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The request was made by Dan Odongo, Executive Secretary UNEB while appearing before Parliament’s Budget Committee to defend the supplementary budget request.
Odongo defended the supplementary funding arguing that before the pandemic, the Board required spacing of 1.2 meters but this distance has to be adjusted to 2m meters to conform with the SOPs, a development that would require more invigilators to cover the additional rooms to be used.
For Primary Leaving Examinations that will be conducted in 2 days, UNEB plans to hire additional 19,910 invigilators with each fetching Shs48,500 bringing the total to Shs1.931 billion.
In Uganda Certificate Examinations, UNEB plans to hire additional 8,703 and each would be paid Shs48,500 bringing total to Shs5.909 billion while UACE will need 4,747 invigilators to oversee average 10days of examinations at a cost of Shs2.302 billion.