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The Inter-University Council for East Africa and member states from the East African Community need to address the issue of poor quality of education in private universities operating without minimum requirements. Members of the East African Legislative Assembly are concerned about those “quack universities” where students are tricked into enrolling but later fail to graduate after the universities have closed. This is the case of Kampala University, which opened a branch in Juba but closed without informing students, leaving them stranded.

A new report by the Education Service Commission (ESC) has revealed that since 2003, 1,000 ghost teachers have been on the government payroll. Over 600 ‘ghost teachers’ from various secondary schools and tertiary institutions accessed the payroll with fake appointment letters signed by officials, while 400 teachers lacked practising licences. The report says that in few schools, appointed teachers were not teaching but sub-contracted private teachers to perform their duties.

Academic dishonesty including dissertation fraud is on rise universities in Africa. Only 24 African countries out of 54 have institutional repositories. This means that dissertations and other sources of information that can be plagiarised only exist in hard copies. According to a professor from Uganda, one way to eliminate contract writing is to establish a rigorous process throughout the dissertation writing and defence process. The president of the Southern African Students Union believes that paying lecturers decent salaries will lead to a decrease in the number of people engaging in ghost-writing for students.

Chung Chou University of Science and Technology (CCUT) has been forcing students from Uganda to work in factories for long hours to pay off debts they incurred since they did not receive the promised scholarships. The university had been under observation for quality issues since 2015 so this new element persuaded the advisory commission on private schools to ask the Ministry of Education for tougher sanctions against CCUT which is no longer allowed to recruit any new students, whether foreign or domestic.

To prevent the forging of information, a new digital platform will allow learners from primary to university levels to have an identification number. Schools will update data about their learners, teaching and non-teaching staff, infrastructure and facilities including physical education and sports through their online EMIS user accounts. The new system is aimed to eliminate ghost workers and improve transparency and accountability across the country.

Authorities at the national examination body Uneb accused teachers of orchestrating a grand scheme in schools, that pushed pupils to cheat on the 2020 primary leaving exams. The board withheld the results of 2,220 candidates pending completion of investigations into malpractices. Cheating occurs in a number of ways, including parents, in some of the top schools being asked to commit to paying a fee in order for their children to receive good results in the primary leaving exam.

Women and girl child rights activists are calling for tougher and broader sexual harassment guidelines at institutions of higher learning in Uganda to avert cases of lecturers and other university administrators taking advantage of the students they teach. After indecently assaulted a student in 2018, a former administrator at Makerere University has been sentenced to only two years in prison or he has the option to pay a fine of UGX4 million (US$1,080). The 2019 Annual Police Crime Report for Uganda tallied sexual violence-related cases, including assault and rape, at 1,528.

In 2019, the Ministry of Education and Sports ordered the online registration of all teachers in Kwania to streamline their services and help clear ghost workers. According to the Ministry of Education records from January, over 15,000 teachers turned up for the validation exercise with fake documents, whereas 52,900 teachers were registered under the Teacher Management Information System and received certificates.

Three teachers were placed in prison for conspiracy and examination malpractice. They disobeyed the Uganda Examinations Board’ code of conduct and revealed the content of the 2018 Primary Leaving Examinations paper and then sold them to different schools in Buyende and Kamuli districts.

Mbarara High School headteacher and his bursar are charged with three counts of embezzlement, causing financial loss and abuse of office. The two appeared before the Anti-Corruption court in Kampala and were accused of failing to account for Shs 207 million school money.