As hundreds of Thousands of students prepare to graduate tomorrow, at least 50 of their colleagues are in tears after their names were withdrawn from the Makerere University graduation list for illegally bribing their way to the top.
According to reports, the University found that several Masters and Bachelor's Degree students had been smuggled into the graduation book. The affected colleges include; the College of Computing and Information Sciences (CoCIS) and College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES).
In the college of Computing and Information Sciences, 23 students were smuggled into the graduation list. These include six students of Information Systems, Four students of Information technology and three students of Science in Software Engineering. 13 others were students of Computer Science.
Under the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, 12 students of Bachelor of Tourism were unearthed together with one student of Environmental Science. Another set of 12 were due to graduate with Master's Degree in Environmental and Natural Resources.
The other discovery pointed to one student of Biotechnology and another student of Adult and Community Education.
Prof. Mnason Tweheyo, the dean of the School of Forestry, Environmental and Geographical Sciences in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences announced the withdrawal of students over alleged marks alteration.
In an email communication to Prof. Buyinza Mukadasi, the Director Research and Graduate Training, Prof. Tweheyo indicated that 12 masters' students had appeared on the graduation list without clearing with the school and college.
"I want to let you know that we have challenges at the school and somewhere else. This is because the eight students you mention were illegally inserted at the School Level and the four remaining students were inserted from somewhere else. You may wish to investigate this as our Director of Graduate Training," Prof. Tweheyo said.
He said that while the school was conducting preliminary investigations into who may have wrongly entered the online student system to cause the embarrassment, another set of 10 undergraduate students from School of Forestry, Environmental and Geographical Sciences were found to have been inserted in the booklet without going through the School and College.
"As a Dean, I do not have access to the online system which displays student results and I do not even print the results. I totally depend on the School Registrar as a trusted custodian of the students record system. In this case I trusted that the Registrar had printed names of only qualified students," the email communication stated further.
