By Kabuye Ronald
Police in Kabalagala have arrested the proprietor of Earnest Nursery and Primary School for allegedly conducting fake Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) for his pupils in 2020.
The suspect, Wafula Ivan, 34, the director of Earnest Nursery and Primary School located in Kisugu Parish, Makindye Division, is accused of registering candidates under false pretenses and administering counterfeit exams in Busia District.
According to preliminary police findings, Wafula allegedly claimed to have officially registered his Primary Seven candidates with the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB), but instead transported them to an undisclosed location in Busia, where they sat for falsified exams. Afterward, the pupils were returned to Kampala, and their parents were handed forged results and recommendations purportedly issued by UNEB.
Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesperson, Patrick Onyango, confirmed that the fake results were later used by the pupils to join various secondary schools.
“When the results came out, the director issued them to students with forged recommendations. These students used the same results to enroll in secondary schools,” Onyango said.
The scam unraveled in 2024, when Ebenezer Secondary School requested the students’ original PLE result slips to register them for the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) exams. Upon returning to Earnest Nursery and Primary School for the documents, Wafula reportedly failed to produce the originals, prompting a police report.
Kabalagala Police launched an investigation, which revealed that the exams the students took were not official PLE papers. Investigators also confirmed that Nanyuma Primary School, the supposed examination center, never received any candidates from Earnest Nursery and Primary School in 2020.
Police have since recovered the forged results and recommendations, which were submitted to UNEB for verification. The board later confirmed the documents were counterfeit.
Wafula had been on the run for two years before being arrested this week.
Police say investigations are ongoing as they work to identify all individuals affected by the scam and determine whether other schools were involved.
