Authorities at one of Africa’s top universities, the Makerere University in Uganda have announced their decision to recall degrees awarded to students over the past decade.
The university said results of students leading to the award of those degrees were either forged or altered.
The decision will affect law graduates many of whom are now practicing lawyers, magistrates and serving in public and private institutions.
A lawyer told Daily Nation that the university’s decision will affect hundreds of students who graduated from 2007 and are gainfully employed.
“The chaos in the legal profession will have ripple effects. It means Kenya School of Law will recall diplomas awarded while the Law Society of Kenya will expunge many from the roll of advocates,” the lawyer, is quoted as saying.
The other implications according to Daily Nation would be to re-start all cases some of these graduates handled.
The University’s Vice-Chancellor Barnabas Nawangwe told the BBC that the current crisis would not damage the university’s integrity. “We were able to arrest the situation before anyone was able to get our academic papers”, he said.
Uganda’s Commission for University Education chairman Chacha Nyaigoti Chacha is also reported by local media as saying that postgraduate students with a first degree from the University Makerere within the past ten years would have to end their studies.
This year over 14,000 students of Makerere University are reported to have secured fake marks towards graduating.
Authorities announced that they have withheld 14,895 transcripts for students who graduated in February until the institution fixes its results management system.
The University said some staff infiltrated the results management system and falsified some marks.
An investigation was launched into the scandal while four members of the Academic Registrar’s department of the institution were suspended over the matter.
Source: Africafeeds.com
