Let P7 pupils resit

THE PARLIAMENTARY Committee on Social Services wants 12,000 pupils whose P7 results were cancelled to be given the chance to sit the exams again.The Uganda National Examinations Board has already rejected the MPs’ call for special examinations for the pupils. On Thursday the MPs told the Minister of Education and his Permanent Secretary that they believed that ‘innocent’ pupils should be allowed to repeat the exams. Obviously there is some guilt on the part of these 12,000 pupils. They must have realised, to a greater or lesser extent, that they were being given the actual answers to the exams in advance.Nevertheless the MPs are absolutely right that the real guilt lies with their headmasters and teachers who were fully aware of what they were doing. Any pupil can be coaxed into cheating in the panicky period before an exam. The pupils cannot be blamed for cheating if they were not the ones who initiated it. The tricky question remains of what to do with the pupils. If they are allowed to resit, this may encourage future generations to think that they can get away with cheating. Yet on balance they should be allowed to repeat their P7 exams because it was not their fault that they were enticed into cheating. However, to ensure that this does not happen ever again, the Ministry of Education and UNEB should crack down very hard on any headmaster or teacher who has been caught cheating. The ministry should immediately dismiss them and UNEB should stop their schools from sitting any further exams until it is confirmed that they have left the school.