The high failure rates at the Law Development Centre(LDC) is a result of students not taking their studies seriously and instead, acting entitled to receive marks from their lecturers, Justice Irene Mulyagonja (pictured) has said.
Mulyagonja, who doubles as Chairperson of Law Council made the remarks while appearing before the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee yesterday during the scrutiny of the petition by students at LDC over alleged inhumane treatment at the institution.
The Lady Justice said that although there have been many complaints about failure of students at the Centre, with limited understanding of why they failed, the students blame anybody else but themselves as though it was the responsibility of everybody else to ensure they pass apart from themselves.
“However, today we have an entitled youth, they feel they are entitled, they feel they are over entitled whether they come from poor or rich families, they have a sense of entitlement and it is up to us as a nation to ensure that we make sure that we make our young children; to tell them that nobody owes them a living. If you are supposed go to school, if you are supposed to study, study and pass instead of failing to study and failing exams and taking it out on everybody else,” said Mulyagonja.
She added that the current students shouldn’t act like they are the first to go through LDC, but instead thank the current government that has ensured peace and stability, unlike the past regimes that the Mulyagonjas studied under hard political, economic and social times.
“We aren’t speaking like we don’t know what happens at LDC, we may not know what happens at LDC today but we attended LDC at some of the most difficult times in this country, politically, economically and socially but I may not speak for everybody else, but I know that many people were in that position,” Mulyagonja said.
Worth noting however is the fact that 59 year old Mulyagonja was admitted at LDC on government sponsorship and the same scholarship entitled her to free accommodation paid by taxpayers, but government scholarships at LDC were scrapped off about 15years back, and the current students in their petition protested the latest fees increment at LDC from Shs5m to now Shs6M.
“I didn’t want to face my mother whose burden to pay fees had been taken over because Government was paying for me at LDC, they had even given me accommodation; I had to make sure that I pass,” Mulyagonja said.
However, lawmakers castigated the Law council of brushing off allegations of sex for marks at LDC, and militarizing of the Centre by top officials, arguing that these allegations are rife in educational institutions across the country.
This was after Mulyagonja admitted that although the law Council received the petition from the LDC students, the Council declined to scrutunise the petition and instead, sent it back to the administration of LDC and asked the students to exhaust the internal mechanisms .
Fredrick Ssempebwa, Chairperson Committee on Legal Education and Training at Law Council told the Legal Committee that this was not the first time students were complaining about sex for marks, but when asked to give evidence, the victims don’t want to give evidence thus making it hard to investigate the allegations.
The Bubulo West lawmaker, Peter Werikhe blasted the Law Council for failing to assist students who brought their petition to them, saying that these students have a right to be heard.
