More than 200 learners who sat for Primary Leaving Examinations, PLE, from various schools in Kitgum district in 2017 are missing PLE result slips.
Reports indicate that the results slips of the learners who sat PLE that year from at least four different primary schools, got lost from the office of the inspector of schools.
The students who are scheduled to sit for Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education, UCE, examinations this year, owing to the automatic promotion necessitated by the two years of school closure, say their secondary schools are now demanding for result slip for them to register for senior four UNEB examinations and they are stranded.
Rogers Otimkica, one of the affected learners, says he at his PLE from Oryang Ojuma Primary School, and started attempts to get his result slips years back without success.
Otimkica, who is a Senior Four at Kitgum Comprehensive College, says when he went to his primary school to get his result slips the first time, the headteacher said he had not collected them, and kept giving him and other learners different dates for going back for the results.
He says the headteacher later told them that the result slips were misplaced, and advised them to go to the office of the District Education Officer for more information.
Otimkica narrates that last year, about ten of them went to the office of the DEO and met the inspector of schools, who assured them that their result slips were there. He however says before they left the office, the inspector of schools gave them a letter and asked each of them to copy the note in their own handwriting, and sign with their name.
Innocent Anek, a senior four student of Kitgum Comprehensive College, who sat from Lamola Primary School in 2017, says when she and other candidates went to get their result slips while in senior three, the headteacher of their primary first promised them different times they later told them to go to the office of the DEO.
Anek says they moved severally to the office of the DEO until they sought help from the Resident District Commissioner.
She says the RDC promised to meet with the DEO and inspector of schools to sort out the matter, and were promised that they would get their results in two weeks.
Anek says when they returned after two weeks, they were told that UNEB wants the person who signed and received their results, for them to first understand what went wrong with their results.
Anek says she is worried if she will sit for her national exams, saying her school had a population of more than 500 senior four candidates, yet only 350 will be registered for the national examinations, with priority given to those with PLE results slips.
William Komakech, the RDC of Kitgum says has been engaging with officials at UNEB for the past last week, and they are demanding more than 20 million shillings to process the result slips again, saying the results were lost due to the negligence of the officials.
Komakech says he will meet the LCV Chairperson, CAO, and DEO to find a way where to get the money to pay UNEB.
Komakech says the result slips got lost from the office of the inspector of schools before they were collected by the respective school headteachers and if the district refuses to pay for the cost of reprinting, then he will have to meet the cost.
The District Education Officer, Fred Owot, said he cannot comment because the matter is sensitive.
