Soldiers among PLE impostors

Nov 04, 2009

FOUR soldiers were on Tuesday arrested while sitting Primary Leaving Examination in a school in Mubende district. The UPDF soldiers and two teachers were arrested from an examination room at Tiger Army Primary School.

By Luke Kagiri,
Patrick Murangira
and Ismael Kasooha

FOUR soldiers were on Tuesday arrested while sitting Primary Leaving Examination in a school in Mubende district.

The UPDF soldiers and two teachers were arrested from an examination room at Tiger Army Primary School.

The Mubende resident district commissioner, Stephen Bewaayo, said security operatives acted on a tipoff by the scouts and invigilators.

“Their names on the identify cards and the photos were not matching with those on the register or album from Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB). This raised suspicion,” Bewaayo said.

He said when they went to the school to verify, they realised that over 12 pupils’ identity cards did not match those in the register.

“This meant that either some people had been hired to do the papers or there was some other foul play which we had to investigate,” Bewaayo said.

Bewaayo, accompanied by the Police, the district education officer, Benah Bugembe, and Mubende secretary for education Bashir Ssempa, identified that soldiers as Otim Ochero, from the 5th Division in Pader, Osbat Muhirwa from Mubende, Michael Vuziga and Ram Kagima from Mubende.

Another seven teachers were arrested from Kakindu Primary School in Myanzi sub-county following a complaint that two question papers had gone missing on the first day of the examination.

Meanwhile, in Kisoro district, the school management of Kasovu Primary School had to photocopy the Social Studies examination for 37 candidates.

The district inspector of schools, Odo Arigye, said a junior inspector who was transporting the examination papers by motorcycle to Kasovu, lost them under unclear circumstances.

Following the incident, the school management had to photocopy the paper from a neighbouring school.
He said they reported the matter to Kisoro Police, who arrested the inspector identified as William Baributsya. He was later released on bond.

Arigye said residents of Kyanika, on the Uganda-Rwanda border, later recovered the intact envelope containing the examination papers.

In Mbale, three pupils of Nakaloke Primary School missed the examination for various reasons.

The headmaster, Kassim Mugoya, said Twaza Hafuwa and Khanifa Nakanwagi got married, while Masitula Nantongo was bedridden.

In a separate development, a Primary Seven pupil on Tuesday delivered a baby boy during the science exam. Annette Asaba, 18, was a pupil at Kabasara Primary School in Mataale sub-county in Kibaale district.

Vicente Ahimbisibwe, a UNEB scout, said Asaba got her labour pains in the afternoon before she started the mathematics paper. She was rushed home where she delivered.

“We had started our last paper but we were forced to let Asaba out of the examination room to be attended to,” Ahimbisibwe said.

“I did not know of any girl who was pregnant in my school and this came as a surprise,” said Leonard Bigirwa, the school headmaster.

In Kiryandongo Primary School in Masindi, a similar incident happened when 18-year-old Fiona Bbaale gave birth to a baby girl during the first paper on Monday.

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