Police probe over lost PLE pass slips needed

It is not enough that the Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) is going to re-print 3,972 pass slips for pupils who sat primary leaving examinations in 2019. The pass slip loss has been a source of regrettable frustration considering that Uneb has revised its procedures, and nowadays requires registration of examination candidates a year early.

But how did such a large number of documents get lost? Was there a break-in? Did someone deliberately steal them, and why? Has anyone been asked to account? Answers to these questions have to be provided.

We applaud those parents who retained legal counsel in order to compel the authorities to make amends.

Fifty one schools around Kampala were affected by this shocking disappearance of very important academic documents. Sadly, there has been no proper explanation from Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) about what happened. This is unacceptable. The authority has to account for this serious lapse in security.

Such sensitive documents must never be handled with such casualness as to make it possible for them to disappear. A paper trail for delivery through to receipt and storage is always established.  Which makes it easy to work backwards and determine where the mischief, if any, occurred.

An investigation is especially necessary because we live in a country where forgery of personal documents has become a thriving, albeit criminal enterprise.

People pay large sums of money to acquire phony documents for all sorts of reasons. In other cases, criminally-minded people simply indulge in identity theft where genuine documents are altered, making it possible for a crook to assume someone else’s identity – and use it to commit crimes.

As such, there has to be a police inquiry. The Inspectorate of Government should also take an interest in this issue with a view to holding the public servants responsible accountable.

In the meantime, one hopes that Uneb’s declaration on Thursday that it has taken the necessary measures, including deleting serial numbers of the missing pass slips from its database, is fail-safe. Any action taken to prevent sensitive documents from falling into the wrong hands cannot be taken for granted.

In today’s education system, a pass slip has become an even more vital record. Without one, a student cannot register for the subsequent level of national examinations. This means that the affected students, who should now be in Senior Three, momentarily had their prospects for registration hanging in a balance.

Although KCCA has finally relented and agreed to pay the costs of re-printing, the Authority still remains open to further sanction, including prosecution by the schools and parents who have been inconvenienced. That the Authority tried to run away from its responsibility, by reportedly suggesting that the affected parents foot the re-printing bill, is unfortunate.