Four people were arrested in Kabalagala for smuggling Social Studies answers into Hillside Junior School during PLE 2025. According to a UNEB report shared on Monday, Jennifer Kalule-Musamba, the Principal Public Relations Officer at the Board said a scout, a chief invigilator, and two invigilators. Some pupils admitted being helped in Maths too.
“In Kabalagala, near Kampala, the Police have arrested four people who smuggled into the examinations room, photocopies of answers for SST, for candidates of Hillside Junior School, Kisugu, who were seated with candidates of Kisugu Islamic School. Those arrested include one scout, one chief invigilator, and two invigilators. The candidates have confessed to having been assisted during the mathematics paper as well. Four candidates have recorded statements at police,” Musamba said.
A total of 817,885 candidates registered for the exams from 16,140 centres, 52% girls and 48% boys, 64% under UPE, 36% private, including 61 inmates from Upper Prison School Luzira.
Earlier on, Dan Odongo, UNEB Executive Director, warned that invigilators or scouts who allow malpractice face five years in prison or a Shs 20 million fine, or both.
A total of 817,885 Primary Seven candidates across Uganda started their PLE exams on Monday. This represents a 2.5% increase from last year’s 797,444 candidates. Learners began with Mathematics in the morning and continued with Social Studies and Religious Education in the afternoon, all conducted at 16,140 centres nationwide.
According to Musamba, day one of the examinations was conducted successfully throughout the country without any major administrative challenges.
“The weather was good in most parts of the country, except in a few places where the rains disrupted the distribution of the papers from the stations to the schools, leading to a late start in those few cases,” she said.
She however, said that following the tight security measures that the Board has put in place to curb malpractice, especially leakage, leading to prior knowledge of the examinations, a number of schools seem to have resorted to compromising scouts and invigilators to allow them assist candidates during the examination.
“This is in form of external assistance. In some of these cases, those involved have been arrested by police as investigations continue, while others are reported to be on the run,” Musamba added.
