An article shared on Facebook on 11 September 2020 claims Uganda’s education ministry has revised its calendar for the rest of the academic year.
Data from CrowdTangle, a public insights tool owned and operated by Facebook, shows that the article has been shared over 50 times, reaching more than 30,000 people on one public Facebook group alone.
The article includes a document, also shared independently on Facebook. Another post has shared this document many times to reach almost 800,000 people in different groups.
The document, dated September 2020 and from the “Ministry of Education and Sports”, shows 2020 term dates for Ugandan primary, secondary, technical or farm schools, and community polytechnics. It also lists the dates for national examinations.
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Fake document
The Ministry of Education and Sports Uganda has shared screenshots of the document, stamped “FAKE” in red, on its official Twitter account.
The ministry tweeted: “#FakeNews: The document showing a revised School Calendar and a Time Table for candidate classes that is making rounds online is fake!!! Kindly treat it with the contempt it deserves.”
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