Media personality Simon Kaggwa Njala thinks that A’Level is a scam. He has in fact proposed that one year should be scrapped off the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) level.
His argument is that most of the learners who sat for their Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) this year are well over 18 years. And at 18, a learner should be entering the tertiary level of education.
There is no need therefore to take a gamble and subject students to a new curriculum. All that should be done is make them study for one year and then let them seat for pre-entry exams to tertiary institutions.
“Majority of candidates who sat S4 this year are above 18 years. We can’t afford to make them gamble further with the new curriculum. 18 is entry age for University. Let’s just subject them to one year of pre-entry and allow them to do tertiary. A’Level is a scam.”
It should be noted that normally an 18 year old is always completing A’Level if their academic schedule was started in time and not disrupted along the years. However, most learners saw two years ripped off their academic journeys during the COVID-19 pandemic that saw lockdowns between 2020 and 2021.
Although the government tried to squeeze the schedule to recover the lost academic years, it wasn’t fully realized. Most current learners are therefore behind their projected academic journey by a year or two.
Therefore it would be imperative for the government to take this consideration into notice but it seems fully impossible thing.
