Kampala, Uganda — Last week senior four students started the Uganda Certificate of Education Examination ahead of their senior six and primary seven counterparts who are to start next month.

Of the 268,782 students sitting for the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) exams, 1226 are from the newest African country of Southern Sudan.

According to Mr. Mathew Bukenya of Uganda National Examination Board (UNEB), the Sudanese students will sit exams at 20 centers within Sudan.

While addressing journalists in Kampala, Bukenya said as a way of countering cheating and other exam malpractices, UNEB has come up with strict measures that will be put into practice during the entire exam time.

He said that whoever will be caught copying will be nullified from sitting for the paper since cheating means one not ready to sit for the exam.

"The licenses of those schools found cheating will be suspended for a period of not less than five years. We are going to advocate for the amendment of the law such that students caught cheating are completely refused to ever do the exam again," warned Bukenya.

He said such a law has helped other African countries such as Nigeria to get rid of unserious students.

The exams body has deployed a total of more than 800 scouts countrywide to monitor the UCE exams most of whom will operate undercover for a period of two weeks.

East African Business Week interacted with some of the candidates about how they felt about UNEB's new approach but most of them seemed unshaken for they had made thorough preparation and were ready for the exams.

A total of 944,238 candidates registered for the Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE), Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) and Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) exams this year. It is an indication of an increase of about 31,000 candidates from last year's enrollment.