Head teacher charged, remanded over Uneb malpractice

The head teacher of Highland Secondary School, Kisaasi, Kampala, was yesterday charged before City Hall Court and sent on remand on allegations of engaging in 2020 national examinations malpractice.

Mr Yahaya Kiyimba is accused of having allowed unauthorised people to sit Economics Paper 2 for his students of the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE).

He appeared before Grade One Magistrate Fatuma Nabirye and denied the charges. 
Mr Kiyimba will reappear on February 15 to apply for bail.

According to the charge sheet, Mr Kiyimba, under the charge of examination malpractice, on April 13, 2021 at Highland Secondary School, Kisaasi, while conducting Uneb exams at his school as head of centre and chief invigilator, negligently allowed or failed to stop unauthorised assistance from being given to the candidates for Economics Paper 2.

Under the charge of inducing another person, the prosecution alleges that on the same day, Mr Kiyimba allegedly induced Mr Ogwal, who was one of the Uneb scouts, by offering him Shs300,000 to allow unauthorised assistance to the candidates, an act contrary to Section 26 (g) of Uganda National Examinations Board Act 2015.   

Mr James Turyatemba, the manager of examinations management at Uneb, said they dispatched a team of  their scouts to the same school where they found the suspect had allegedly compromised the chief invigilator and circulated materials to the candidates in class.

“The head teacher gave a bribe to our scout but he refused and when the scouts called the police, he confused the police that there were students who were sick and in need of medical attention and in the process, disappeared,” he said.

Mr Turyatemba said the head teacher has since been on the run until last week when police arrested him from an undisclosed place. He added that following the incident, Uneb took charge of the management of the remaining examinations and that they have since cancelled the school’s examination centre for allegedly demonstrating that they cannot handle national examinations.