Law Development Center (LDC) students who were unable to graduate in June this year have petitioned the Uganda Law Council, requesting for a comprehensive exam results audit.
In the petition that has been seen by Nile Post, the students also want the Law Council, to carry out an investigation into the marking, tallying and compilation of all student results for the Academic Year 2019/2020.
“In light of the foregoing, we seek your assistance in obtaining the following prayers; that a comprehensive audit of all students results should be carried out by the Law Council in the exercise of its mandate as the regulator of the conduct of legal education in Uganda,” the students petition reads in part.
According to the results that were released by the LDC last month, 90.1 percent of the 1474 students who sat for the exam failed.
Only 145 students making up for 9 percent of the total students passed the bar course.
A special story into the confusion surrounding the exam results by NBS TV found out that LDC seemed not to have followed its own procedure before releasing the exam results.
But LDC director Frank Othembi told NBS TV then, that a number of changes were made in the examination procedures, due to the current COVID-19 pandemic which affected certain timelines.
The students say that they did not get a chance to see a breakdown of their results for the academic year 2019/2020 and want the Law Council to force LDC to present these results no later than 23 July 2021.
A student who preferred anonymity to talk to this website comfortably said that it is not possible that all 1,500 students failed the exam and this could explain why LDC does not want to present a breakdown of the results they released because “they know it is not true.”
The failed students will have to pay shs 300,000 before they redo a failed paper and the students want the Law Council to task the LDC director Othembi to grant a waiver on payment of these fees before a student sit the supplementary exam.
