A section of the aggrieved students from Kyambogo University on Tuesday morning stormed the High Court in Kampala with a petition seeking to block a forth-coming graduation ceremony.
The petition was filed to the High Court at Twed Towers on behalf of over 200 students who are opposed to the graduation ceremony slated for Tuesday next week.
The University is set to graduate 7,500 students from September 21 to 23, 2021.
The students argue that most of their names do not appear on the graduation list despite them having fulfilled all the necessary requirements.
The allegation stems from an incident in which former staff members at the university reportedly deleted the results of over 29,000 students from the University’s database.
The staff who were working as information technology officers in the Directorate of Information Computer and Technology resigned under unclear circumstances.
The suspects Shamuni Zziwa, Philemon Wengari, Hudson Kisutu, and Joshua are also accused of reportedly tampering with the University servers, library system, and email.
The University Vice-Chancellor, Eli Katunguka has previously confirmed the incident and said this would affect a section of finishing students whose details were deleted.
He added that the administration would sort out the mess before graduation.
However, the aggrieved students claim nothing has been done since then.
They now want the court to task the university authorities to suspend next week’s ceremony and either offer a satisfactory reason for omitting their names or be compelled to include them.
The students also seek to be paid special damages for the mental torture and embarrassment caused to them.
They say students’ data hardly reflects in the Students’ Portal including their cumulative assessment or track of their academic records.
This, they say, infringes on their right to education and freedom from non-discrimination.
“We have waited for the graduation list for almost 3 weeks, the final list came out yesterday and we were informed that all those who do not appear on it will graduate next year. Now, I do a course called Community Development and Social Justice but my department heads cannot explain why I am not graduating. They keep telling us it’s not your fault, it’s not our fault either but the system has changed, our marks were scrapped off,” one student explained.
“They are really breaking our hearts now after having waited for all this time only to hear that we are not graduating. I don’t know why they are rushing, they can as well postpone the graduation ceremony to December as long as all students’ issues have been dealt with because a big number are not on the list,” another student added.
