The decision of Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) to release this year’s Primary Leaving Examination (PLE) results at Kampala Parents School has raised eyebrows.
It comes a day after UNEB issued a statement indicating that it would release the PLE results at the privately owned Kampala Parents School on Friday this week.
This is the first time UNEB will be releasing results outside its premises, Education Ministry Offices or any other designated government facility.
Professor Bbosa Lutalo, the former UNEB board Chairperson is one of those up in arm against the development.
“Normally results are released at a neutral environment. Kampala Parents in this instance is not a neutral place. It has a primary class. It is going to be one of the recipients of the results. This makes one wonder whether government has vested interests in the school,” Prof Lutalo said.
He noted that the release of PLE results at Kampala Parents School will make history. “During my time as UNEB chairman, we always chose a government institute. This has never been done. It’s unheard of in our history, “Prof Lutalo said.
It is still unclear why the release of PLE results has been moved to Kampala Parent’s school.
Ms Jennifer Katumba, the UNEB Spokesperson, says that they didn’t have a choice where the examinations would be released.
“Our job was to mark the papers and release the exams. We wrote to the Ministry to inform them and they chose the venue. We had nothing to do with the decision,” Katumba said.
A source from the Education Ministry said on condition of anonymity that the decision to release the results at Kampala Parent’s school came from the office of the education minister, Ms Janet Museveni who is also the First Lady.
“When UNEB wrote about the release of the examinations the request was passed on to the Minister’s office, which decided on the venue. This time round, they wrote back and we don’t have any idea why Kampala Parents School was chosen,” the source said.
When contacted, the ministry’s spokesperson, Patrick Muinda said he was out of the country before referring us to the PS.
Our efforts to get a coment from the PS Alex Kakooza were futile as his known telephone numbers were switched by the time of filing this story. However, we later learnt that they were in a meeting ahead of the release of results tomorrow.
