National primary examinations are set to start on Monday, July 12 and end July 14, with a total of 254,678 pupils sitting for the exams, according to the National Examinations and Schools Inspection Authority (NESA)

During a virtual press conference held later today Friday, July 9, Bernard Bahati, the Director General of NESA said that candidates and everyone involved in the national examinations should be vigilant and remember all the guidelines of Covid-19 and be safe.

"As every school has been doing since the start of the pandemic, taking all the necessary precautions like washing hands, social distancing, we expect these regulations to keep going on during the national examinations” he said.

"All the centres are ready, and the examinations are already being distributed to the different centres in the country, and the centres have been given all the necessary instructions,” he added. "We have increased the number of centres by allocating1,021 centres for the primary national examinations from 3,135 primary schools, compared to the 938 centres we had allocated 2019, this is because we want the candidates to have more space, and social distance as a means to curb the pandemic while doing examinations.”

However all primary candidates are requested to go to their respective centres this Sunday, July 11, to be given instructions on the national examinations and be assigned to their respective seats.

In a recent interview with The New Times Bahati said there will be no inter-district movements because each district has its own examination centres and no movements will be made by candidates.

When asked how they will cater for the candidates who might miss national examinations due to Covid-19, NESA said they are still working on a plan to facilitate them.

"We want to assure the candidates that no one will have a problem concerning examinations in case they miss because it is their right and we will cater for them,” Bahati said, "The national examinations that started with TVET practical from June 14 and ended July 3 went smoothly and so far we do not have any reports of any candidate who missed the Examinations due to Covid-19.”

After the primary examinations, O-Level examinations will start on July 20 and end July 27, and A-Level and TVET theory examinations will start on July 20 and end July 27, finally A-Level Science practical examinations will start on July 28 and end July 30.

A total of 452,053 candidates from across the country are expected to sit their national examinations.