Janet Museveni, Minister of Education

The Minister for Education, Janet Museveni, has pledged to strengthen monitoring in Primary Teachers’ Colleges so that they can meet the required standards.

She made the remarks on Monday at the release of the 2016 grade III certificate exam results where 10,131 out of 16,273 candidates who registered passed the Grade III exams.

The performance was better in all subjects including Maths and English that were previously performed poorly during the 2015 season.

Apart from Math with pass rate of 76%, the candidates managed to pass the rest of the 12 subjects’ local language, social studies, agriculture, and integrated science with a pass mark of over 99%.

Best performing Primary Teacher Colleges were Bundibugyo, Rakai, Bushenyi, Ndegeya (Masaka), Canon Apollo (Fort Portal) with an over-all pass of over 85%.

Meanwhile, the worst performing colleges were all private and these included; Busoga University PTC, St. Baptist Ggaba, Namutamba with below 40% overall pass rate.

The released results also indicated that a total of 5, 600 candidates failed the exams.

Museveni who is also the first lady of Uganda has urged stake holders to ensure that all PTCs including private colleges meet the minimum standards if they are to realize an improvement in performance.

The Secretary General of Uganda National Teachers Union, James Tweheyo, together with he  chairperson of PTC Principals, Beatrice Byakutaga and Dr. Godfrey Bakaira the head of teacher training section at Kyambogo University took time to explain reasons for the poor performance of  private colleges in the country.

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Government is set to borrow US$91.5million from the International Development Association (IDA)of the World Bank to finance the Grid Expansion and Reinforcement Project.

The project is intended to increase availability and efficiency of bulk electricity supply in Gulu, Nebbi and Arua districts, which will help in the evacuation of power from new generation sites such as Karuma and Isimba hydro power stations.

Engineers fixing power lines in a rural area.

Government will also borrow an additional  US$ 11.32million (Kuwait Dinars 3.5m) from the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development to finance the construction of the 33KV and 11KV distribution project in six districts of; Kiryandongo, Kibaale, Nebbi, Bushenyi, Kasese and Rukungiri.

This project aims to further extend the rural power line coverage by construction of a 285 km network in the six districts. The project is also aimed at facilitating the implementation of the rural electrification programme, to increase access and unlock suppressed demand.

“This project is in line with the country’s Vision 2040 and the National Development Plan, 2015/16 – 2019/2020 which identify with the promotion of sustainable economic growth and improving the living standards of the population in the rural areas, by providing access to electricity through extending the interconnected electricity grid,” said a source from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral development who preferred anonymity .

Legislators said that although generation, access and distribution of electricity were increasing, the cost of power and its installation remained prohibitive to the general population.

“We need to review the cost of power, considering that it’s of no benefit to have poles and power lines when the people cannot access and utilise the power,” said Hon. Helen Kahunde (Kiryandondo).

Hon. Nabilah Naggayi (Kampala) said that several consumers were willing to pay for power but were being frustrated by the UMEME, the service provider.

“It is very hard, expensive and difficult to access the Yaka pre-paid system. UMEME should not frustrate people who want to access this service,” she said.

Hon. Mbabali Muyanja (Bukoto South).

Hon. Mbabali Muyanja (Bukoto South) said a lot of power was being lost due to illegal connections, now standing at 38%. The MP recommended that power be connected to houses on credit.

The Committee on National Economy noted a mismatch in the electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure necessary to evacuate the power and make it accessible to consumers.

It recommended that government streamlines this mismatch between generation, transmission and distribution over the medium term in order to ensure that the medium target of 30 percent access to electricity is attained, but also ensure that all generated power is consumed.

The Committee also recommended that government considers acquiring a central corridor for infrastructure projects to accommodate power lines, water pipes, communication infrastructure and road reserves, so as to reduce on repeated compensation whenever projects are implemented.

The Committee called upon the government steps up efforts to increase power supply which will gradually help to reduce energy prices to about 7 US cents/kilowatt/hr by 2017.

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The MP Elect for Bushenyi-Ishaka Municipality Tayebwa Odo of Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) on Tuesday took oath as dully elected MP.

The function took place at 2:00pm and the venue for the function was the headquarters ofUgandaparliament inKampala.

The swearing in ceremony was presided over by the speaker of parliament, Rebecca Kadaga and assisted by the clerk to parliament, Jane Kibirige.

The parliamentary gardens were all full with FDC blue colours of Hon. Tayebwa’s supporters from Bushenyi. The speaker of parliament congratulated Tayebwa Odo and the people of Bushenyi for sending pro active legislator in the house and wished him wonderful deliberations.

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Justice Minister, Maj. Gen. Kahinda Otafiire threatened to expose all the dirt of FDC leaders which he has kept all the years. Kahinda says that the government has all the reports and details of bad deals ever done by FDC President Col. Kiiza Besigye and his cohorts in FDC.

Otafiire says that some of the FDC leaders are immoral, have poor marital records and poor leadership. The minister is bitter that recently FDC leaders went to Bushenyi and told the people there that all the NRM leaders including Otafiire are corrupt.

Otafiire asks FDC leaders to practice mature politics if they don’t want NRM to join their smear campaigns. The minister says that what Ugandans know about Besigye, Mugisha Muntu, Wafula Oguttu among other FDC leaders is too little.

Ultimate Media

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