The parents and students of St. Augustine Senior Secondary School in Nakifuma-Naggalama town council whose Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) results were withheld by the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) over examination malpractice on Friday stormed the school demanding for an explanation.
The parents together with their children stormed the director, Dr. Martin Bbuye in his office urging that it’s now over two months since UNEB released the 2023 UCE results whereby a section of the school candidates had their results withheld but the school did not bother to formally communicate to the affected parents.
New Vision learnt that out of the 46 candidates who sat for UCE exams from St. Augustine Senior Secondary School located in Mukono district, 19 had their results withheld by UNEB for participating in examination malpractice.
Though the storming of parents to Dr. Bbuye’s office got him by surprise, he said that the school was making arrangements to call for a meeting for the affected parents on Sunday.
However, one of the parents, Monica Nakijoba attacked him and accused him of telling lies before them because they had never received any communication bearing information inviting them for the alleged meeting.
Nakijoba said that they were so perturbed because instead of the school making formal communication to the parents who handed them the students and paid all the necessary school dues and requirements, the school authorities were secretly dealing with the students.
“How come you are saying you had organized a meeting for the affected parents on Sunday yet it’s Friday and none of us had got the invitation for your alleged meeting?” the parent asked.
At this point, Bbuye called for his headteacher whom he blamed for failure to communicate to the parents as he had asked him to do.
Brenda Nakiganda, another parent also faulted the school administration for failure to engage them as the parents who had contracted the school to offer education services to their children and instead decided to deal with the students.
Nakiganda said that in a letter UNEB wrote to the school, it asked for the physics teacher, headteacher and the affected students but the school administration failed to present the teacher as per UNEB’s request.
It is alleged that UNEB found out that 19 out of 46 candidates of St. Augustine Senior Secondary School Nakifuma had written the same answers for the Physics practical paper.
UNEB also found out that the answers, though they were wrong, had been prior given to the students before the real exam by their teacher.
Students said that Herbert Sseggane had been teaching them Physics from Senior Three but he is currently unreachable.
When the parents asked to know the whereabouts of teacher Sseggane from the school director Dr. Bbuye, he told them the school can no longer deal with such unprofessional character.
“If you want to get him, ask your children who dealt with him, they could be knowing where their accomplice is hiding,” he bitterly responded.
Bbuye told the parents that though he also had hope that when they are given opportunity, the affected students would defend themselves but he was shocked when the panel of UNEB officials handed them their transcripts and asked them to defend themselves one by one and they failed to do so.
“I was so disappointed seated in front of UNEB officials looking at how my students were acknowledging having cheated the exams. I felt like caning all of them there and then! I provided teachers to teach the whole class. I did not cheat for the candidates, nor did I ask any teacher to cheat for them because it is not our tradition,” said the frustrated director.
The students however said that for the whole of last year, the school had no substantive headteacher and that the position was jungled by the director himself and one of his sons.
“The person he presented before UNEB that he was our headteacher we had not seen him before,” said one of the students.
They however denied having engaged in exam malpractice as UNEB concluded saying that the paper which UNEB showed them as a summary that it’s the one they used for copying did not bear names of their teacher but another person.
The disappointed parents left Bbuye’s office without reaching a conclusive point as he asked them to prepare their children to get ready to redo the exams in October because it is the only solution they currently have as the curriculum changed.
Arthur Kabugo, the only male parent in attendance said that they had intended to have a peaceful meeting with the director and forge a way forward but he was not receptive.
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