Kampala — With barely a week to the start of the Senior Six Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) examinations, a 19-year old student at Kibibi Secondary School in Mpigi District, who gave birth a week ago, could miss her passes after her headteacher refused her return to school.

Ms Fatuma Nansamba, who gave birth to a boy on October 24, says her headteacher, Mr Abbey Mubiru, has vowed that she will not sit for her A' Level exams, which are due to start on November 10. "The headmaster told my mother that I leave school until I deliver and then he would discuss the outcome with her," Ms Nansamba told Daily Monitor at her mother's one-room house in Kawempe yesterday. "My mother has been in touch with the headmaster ever since I was told to go home at the end of last term but he has insisted that, 'your daughter will not do exams from my school."

Ms Nansamba expressed her desire and readiness to sit her History, Economics, Islam and Fine Art papers. "I expect to do my exams since I have finished delivering and I have also been revising," she said, with tears rolling down her cheeks.

Uneb regulations don't block a student who has given birth from sitting for her exams, provided she is in good health. "I was never expelled from school. When the headmaster found out that I was pregnant, he called my mother and then simply gave me a pass out (of school) since the next day we were breaking off for holidays but since then I have never reported to school."

Seeing that Mr Mubiru wasn't ready to listen to Ms Nambooze's (Nansamba's mother) pleas, she reported the matter to Mpigi Police Station for advice but a file has never been opened.

According to Uneb secretary Mathew Bukenya, Ms Nansamba has a right to sit her exams. "If she is a registered candidate, there is no reason the headteacher should deny her the exams. It is wrong and she should go there and do her exams," Mr Bukenya told Daily Monitor on telephone.

"I am going to write to him so that he allows her to do her exams. If only he says he does not want her in the dormitory with other girls, that is okay but she must do her exams. I will emphasise to him and let her prepare to attend the briefing day." The senior six briefing day is November 7.

So far, the mother's efforts to talk to Mr Mubiru about the matter have fallen on deaf ears as he has vowed not to allow the girl to sit her exams. Her desperate efforts to plead her daughter's case through the press seems to have further infuriated the headmaster. "If you have decided to go to [Daily] Monitor for them to call me, let them be the ones to help you. Let your daughter go and breast feed but not come here. There is no way I will help you," Ms Nambooze quotes the headmaster to have told her after Daily Monitor contacted him.

Early this month, Uneb issued regulations, saying all registered candidates would sit the exams even if they had not yet completed payment of their tuitions fees.

Mr Bukenya says the same position applies to students who have conceived or delivered prior to or during the exams. "Well, unless it is a disciplinary case, which it is not, there is no reason why this girl should not attend to her exams," he said. The same sentiments were echoed by the State Minister for Higher Education, MrGabriel Opio.

"Uneb has already directed that everybody who registered should do exams. That is the government position and the headmaster should not do anything contrary. Let Bukenya (the Uneb boss) advise and he (headmaster)should follow the government's position on such matters."

But when Mr Mubiru was contacted by telephone for a comment, he sounded ignorant of the whole matter. "Do you want to make headlines from that or you are asking about the school?" he asked. "I can't tell you anything if it's not about the school and even then, I am busy with exams and I am not at liberty to talk to you because I don't know you."

Mr Mubiru doubles as the Uneb area supervisor. Ms Nansamba's case is not an isolated one this year, as two other girls are reported to have delivered while sitting their Uneb exams.