The Kamuli grade one magistrate, Aisha Nabukeera, on Friday remanded Moses Kamya, the director of Mustard seed senior secondary school and the director of studies, Hawali Muledu, to Kamuli government prisons, over abetting examination malpractice.
Their school is located within Busoota zone, in Southern division, within Kamuli municipality.
The duo entered a not-guilty plea and were remanded till the 7th of November, 2022.
They are charged with two counts of hiring mercenaries to sit for UNEB examinations and abetting examination malpractice.
The two juveniles were charged with impersonation and they applied for bail. However, the ruling pertaining their application will be delivered on Monday next week.
It is alleged that the duo connived to register senior five students from an undisclosed school, who registered first grades during last year’s UCE exams to sit for this year’s exams for two girls within the school.
This undercover act, which had gone unnoticed since the two boys were equally registered and appeared in the UNEB albums, was unearthed by a new set of invigilators who were introduced to the school after two weeks of overseeing the ongoing examination exercise from other schools.
It is further reported that while undertaking both geography and mathematics examinations respectively, invigilators discovered that two boys were recording girls’ names on the examination papers, prompting them to alert UNEB scouts about the abnormality.
The mercenaries confessed to the crime prompting their immediate arrest alongside Kamya and Muledu respectively.
The students who were meant to sit for the exams are still at large. However, the Busoga North police spokesperson, Michael Kasadha says that efforts of tracking them down are underway.
The UNEB’s senior legal officer, Anne Kemaali says that several schools have discarded the old forms of examination malpractice, where head teachers would connive with invigilators to leak examination papers to students before examination time and they have now resorted to hiring mercenaries who sit for examinations on behalf of students.
Kemaali also notes that they are liaising with police authorities to hunt down a group of teachers, who created a WhatsApp group used to extort money from unsuspecting head teachers, with hopes of supplying them with fake PLE examination papers.
Kemaali further says that, under section 36 of the UNEB Act, they are also pursuing a case against the administrators of Bugobi Modern Senior Secondary School, located in Ivukula Sub County in Namutumba district, whom they accuse of misappropriating funds meant for the registration of senior four students.
Whoever is found guilty of misappropriating UNEB registration fees is either fined 40 Million Shillings, imprisoned for 10 years or sentenced for both punishments.
–URN
