LDC students face uncertain future

A significant number of students at the Law Development Centre (LDC) face an uncertain future in the unfolding results scandal even as the institution continues to downplay their concerns.

On March 13 at 7:41pm, the LDC academic registrar Stephanie Lukwanzi sent out a general email to LDC students. The email with subject “Urgent Invitation to LDC Kampala Campus (JLOS Hall)-on Friday March 15, 2024 at 10:00am” contained a list of 45 student registration numbers from LDC’s Mbarara Campus.   

Sunday Monitor has established, through corroboration with various students who attended, that LDC authorities informed those in attendance that they had been told that they had been found below the pass mark in certain subjects. This typically translates into redoing the failed subjects.

A bitter pill
For the students who had already celebrated finishing the bar course, this was a bitter pill to swallow. The students have not unquestionably received the new results. They cite incompetence and a toxic culture in which LDC goes about its business.

The communication to the affected students came on March 15 yet results were on the portals on February 7 and all seemed okay to them.

“In fact those who had passed at least have one supplementary. Those who had two supplementary papers were added one which made them fail the course. They are going to review their scripts right from IAs [Individual Assessments] to written exams. I know of someone who failed because of 0.6 removal from family and now he’s not going to graduate,” a student who asked not to be named, told Sunday Monitor.

Sunday Monitor has reviewed and verified at least two cases. One student was preparing for graduation and was called to be briefed that she wasn’t going to graduate because there was some wrong allocation of her mark. Another one was discontinued after that call, as she was added another failed subject after that meeting when the marks changed.

On March 20, the LDC public relations officer, Mr Frank Obonyo, in response titled “There is no scandal at LDC” to a Sunday Monitor story (see LDC in new scandal over student marks on March 17, 2024) dismissed the concerns of the students.               

“For those that are acquainted with the way LDC handles the concerns of its major stakeholders – the students, the dismissive attitude reflected in the letter is exactly the attitude shown to students by the LDC staff,” a student interviewed for this story said.

In his response, Mr Obonyo said since the release of results, the institution has among other things organised supplementary exams in category B and C for the affected students. 

He, however, did not make any mention of students who still have missing marks up to date and were denied the opportunity to sit the same exams on the presumption that they do not qualify to sit them, having failed two category A subjects with missing marks in one or two other subjects in the same category.

What the law says
Mr Obonyo and the LDC management, according to several students interviewed, has “skilfully” dodged their concern about the suppression of the right to a fair hearing per Rule 29 of the Rules governing the Bar Course of 2022. 

The Rule demands that a person can only apply for verification of their results after scoring not less than 45 percent in the written exam. The same Rule further demands that a person can only apply for verification if they do not have more than one supplementary exam in a particular category of subjects.

“The effect of the rule is that it deprives affected persons of the much desired remedy and leaves students hurting in agony with no remedy available to them. These Rules have been amended but interestingly, the Rule on attainment of at least 45 percent to qualify for an appeal has been maintained as Rule 30 (1) of the Rules Governing the Bar Course 2023. This implies that there will still be very many students in the current intake who will be denied the opportunity to be heard,” one student said.

LDC argues that the students are bound by the rules they agree upon when commencing the course. This, students argue, is in total disregard of the fact that students have no option since LDC is the only institution offering the Post Graduate Diploma in Legal practice.

Response
In his opinion in response to our Sunday Monitor story, Mr Obonyo said the news of students’ marks changing on portals is not true. He also claimed that the 48 students whose scripts were reviewed, were as result of successful appeals.

We have established that none of the students whose marks changed for worse had appealed. It was an internal discovery that some students from Lira and Mbarara campuses had been given the wrong results.

The 48 successful appeals are different from the students whose marks changed on the portals for worse, with some students failing a third category A subject and thereby being discontinued and asked to reapply for the course even when they had been preparing for supplementary exams.

Mr Obonyo also alleged that students with missing marks had been handled and further stated that the final results would be published after March 22.

Sunday Monitor sought to verify the claim by checking with some of the affected students. By 5pm on March 21, students with missing marks still had “0” as the score in the missing gaps.

Meanwhile, the LDC academic registrar released a communication that registration for supplementary exams would close on March 21.

On Thursday at 9pm, Nicholas Mpairwe, the assistant academic registrar of LDC, Kampala, released what LDC management themed as the ‘final list’ for those sitting orals, including continuing students.

By presstime on Saturday morning, the earlier affected students still had ‘‘0’’ as the score on their student portals.

“One wonders what remedy will be available to a student whose missing mark finally appears with the final results and would like to appeal against the score under the rules. The move to delay release of these missing marks seems calculated, to deprive those who may want to dispute the awarded scores of any remedies.”

Fearing for the worst
Some students fear that history could be repeated where LDC completely loses students’ marks and thereby forcing students to repeat the particular subjects for no fault of their own.

In 2021, the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) investigated LDC after more 1,000 students of the bar course petitioned NCHE accusing the LDC administration of breach of bar course rules on handling examination results.

A student from one of the campuses, who passed the bar course and is due for graduation told Sunday Monitor in response to our query that students who were not announced as having passed are just bitter.
“I think the whole system requires an overhaul. Top to bottom. You will find that some people are okay to stay, but most likely...many should not. Okay we can allow that the standard of teaching will remain tough and military (lion hunting). But what about the administrative issues? The truth remains that they [LDC] can’t and should not be handling such a huge number of students at a go,” the student said.

Another student accused the LDC management of gas lighting them. “It is interesting how Mr Obonyo dubs the students raising concerns as failures on the basis of what he himself calls provisional results, if indeed they are not final. It is my prayer that one time the inhumane administration at LDC that delights in depressing students with their dismissive attitude shall carry out an internal search and be fair to the students who go through the institution,” the student said.