KAMPALA, Uganda – The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has dismissed two high-ranking staff members for attempting to manipulate examination marks in favor of specific schools during the marking of last year’s national exams, according to a statement released by the board.
The two individuals, who held the position of “officers in charge of data entry” at separate examination marking centers, were caught by UNEB’s internal system when discrepancies were detected in the data they inputted, UNEB Executive Director Dan Odongo confirmed yesterday.
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Sources familiar with the matter revealed that one of the dismissed staff members served as a public relations assistant at UNEB, while the other worked within the department responsible for chemicals and reagents used during examinations. The attempted manipulation occurred during the marking process for the 2024 Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) examination, which concluded earlier this year.
The dismissal follows the circulation of a 723-word dossier on social media by a whistleblower detailing alleged “How UNEB Staff Trade Marks for Money.” In response to these allegations, Odongo issued a statement affirming UNEB’s robust security measures designed to detect any attempts to alter candidates’ scores. He stated that it was through these very systems that the board was able to swiftly identify the two staff members’ attempts to tamper with candidate marks.
While the social media report suggested that UNEB officers had been approached by schools regarding mark alterations since 2018, Odongo indicated that internal investigations found no evidence of prior security breaches to support this claim. He also clarified that no other UNEB staff members, beyond the two dismissed individuals, were implicated in the attempted malpractice.
According to Odongo, UNEB implemented five key actions in response to the incident, including handing over the suspects to the police for further investigation. He noted that the two staff members underwent the board’s internal disciplinary procedures, where they confessed to attempting to manipulate the marks, claiming it was their first such attempt.
“It is, therefore, not true, as indicated in the social media report, that this kind of malpractice has been going on for some years,” Odongo emphasized in the statement. “Due to the gross nature of violation of the board’s values, the two members of staff have been dismissed from the services of the board.”
Odongo further assured the public that UNEB re-validated scores on the scripts from the suspected centers and confirmed that the perpetrators were unsuccessful in altering any scores within the official systems.
The whistleblower’s dossier also shed light on a related incident involving the arrest of an alleged fraudster in Lira district. This individual had reportedly been extorting money from headteachers and school owners by falsely claiming their students’ results were at risk of cancellation due to fabricated malpractice concerns. Investigations revealed that this fraudster was obtaining sensitive candidate information from insiders within UNEB, using it to dupe school administrators. The whistleblower alleged that the arrested individual was part of a larger network involving UNEB staff and that one of the now-dismissed officers had been repeatedly approached by schools seeking mark alterations for financial gain, allegedly building a network over several years due to consistent assignments to UACE marking centers.
