Secondary schools hike senior one cut-off points

The big numbers of eligible candidates has prompted most secondary schools to hike the entry cut-off points.

Iganga Secondary School, which is one of the best female schools in the country, had 2,029 PLE candidates who named it their first secondary school choice. However, the school has chosen to take only 240 candidates at the ongoing senior one selection exercise.

The school’s decision has left 1,789 candidates without a place at the school.

Other schools such as Kibuli Secondary School, Kings College Budo, Gayaza High School, Mengo Senior Secondary School, Mt. St Mary’s Namagunga among others have also raised entry points for senior one admission.

Kibuli Secondary School, among those named above, will only admit boys who got 6 and girls who scored 7 in aggregates. This is higher compared to what they registered last year. The school has only admitted 200 PLE candidates, and 1954 who met the school cut-off points will not be admitted.

According to UNEB, a total of 114,617 (representing 12.1%) passed in division in 2022 compared to 81,864 (representing 11%) in the same division in 2020.

However, it is also important to note that there was an increase in the number of candidates who registered for PLE exams.

A total of 832,654 candidates from 14,691 centres registered for the PLE exams in 2022 compared to 749,761 in 2020.

The education minister, Janet Museveni, noted that there was been an increase in the number of candidates who registered for the exams through the Universal Primary Education (UPE) program. She said this means that people are now more than ever confident about the UPE program.

“I have observed that more candidates have enrolled through PLE which I think means our people have become more confident about UPE,” she said.

Of the total number of candidates, 583,768 (representing 70.1%) candidates registered for the PLE exams through UPE from 11, 306 centres.

Despite the UPE program having more candidates, their counterparts in non-UPE schools performed better than them.