Campus Bee has received an audio from a recorded phone conversation between a student and a staff member of Mukono based Uganda Christian University (UCU) in which the staff member on the other side of the line says there will be no solution for scores of first year law students who were given retakes by Jonan Luleti, a tutorial assistant in a contract law coursework.
The conversation is quite patchy, but what Campus Bee has managed to salvage reveals one student inquiring from a lecturer if there would be a solution to over 64 retakes that were awarded in his stream. The stream in particular has about 100 students.
“Sir I just wanted to confirm with you about the other issue you were trying to push” asks the unidentified student inquiring about a solution that their lecturer had offered to give.
In response, the lecturer intimated to the student that he tried to liase with his tutorial assistants and that they said there would be no solution for them.
The lecturer also informed the student that the faculty dean said the situation is beyond him and that those who failed the coursework will have to redo that course unit in the next academic year when that particular course unit would be taught, an experience the students dread.
The course work results for the students were released about two weeks before the examination week started.
“We pleaded to the tutor to give us a redo of the coursework and he refused” one of the affected students informed this website.
The affected students will not be allowed to sit the exam on Monday.
From the audio, the lecturer informed the student that the affected students will be subjected to disciplinary action if they sit the exam without having the sitting mark/coursework mark for the exam.
When asked why the students failed the coursework, one of the students mentioned that the course unit was hard, with difficult principles and that they were not taught.
“Our lecturer and tutor appeared for few classes” another student says.
The Bee has learnt that the students complained to their faculty about a tutorial assistant who was not attending classes and the said tutor was dismissed.
The replacement for the first tutorial assistant is the one that has failed them.
“He only taught two classes, and most of the time he was telling stories,” adds the student referring to the teaching method of the new tutorial assistant.
The students from the affected stream are stressed out and very scared that they will not be sitting the Monday exam.
“We have been refused to sit for the paper by the biased tutor” reads one of the messages from the affected students. The students believe there was bias because their class got another tutorial assistant dismissed from the faculty.
The dismissed tutorial assistant was also teaching Revenue, a selective courseunit at the university.
The bee has been informed that there is also a big failure rate in the fourth year law class where the said Luleti replaced the dismissed tutor. The likely implication of this is that some of the finalists will not be able to graduate this year because of that course unit.
