Being a head teacher is not a bed of roses

Most teachers strive to become head teachers at some point in their career. What they forget though is that the position comes with numerous challenges.

This, Anguyo Pariyo, a 68-year-old retired head teacher was yet to discover when he served as the headmaster of Kabalega Secondary School in Masindi and later Vurra Secondary School in 1982.
“It is not easy to administer both teachers and students. It needs an astute mind, love for your work, psychology and management skills,” Pariyo says.

But had it not been for the love his mother had for education, perhaps the retired headmaster may have missed out. “I came from a poor family background where my father only liked alcohol and my mother education. I grew up in a mud and wattle grass thatched house. It was partitioned into a bedroom, sitting room and the children just huddled in any available space to spend a night,” Pariyo says.

Born in October 1949, his mother pushed him to start going to Vurra Primary School at five years of age in 1954. He completed junior school in 1962 and joined Mvara Secondary School in Arua District.
Becoming a teacher did not come as a last resort to Pariyo. He had always nurtured dreams of teaching as a child and the respect that teachers were being given at the time sealed it.

Although he did not enroll for an education degree immediately, he acquired a postgraduate diploma in Education in 1973 after graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree from Makerere University in 1972. Pariyo started teaching at Kabalega Secondary School in July 1973.
He left Kabalega to pursue his other dream of founding a school. And in 1981, Pariyo founded Vurra Secondary School located about 14 kilometres from Arua Town. He was also the school’s first head teacher. In 1982, the school was elevated to A-Level.

“Success does not come on a silver platter. Life in administration is never smooth. There are many temptations and forces that keep driving students and teachers towards resisting an administration. There was an attempted strike at the school in 1995 when students refused to eat potatoes saying they are meant for pigs. The second attempt was in 2002 when students matched to the District Education Officer’s office accusing me of being absent from school,” Pariyo recounts.
Despite all the challenges, Pariyo says when he returns home and sees his children, he is filled with pride.

Major events
Retirement. Anguyo Pariyo says he retired in 2008, but there are two major diseases retired people face: seclusion and redundancy. “And this affected me too because I was not prepared. When one is ill prepared, retirement can bring misery and some people die faster than expected. But I moved quickly and joined politics. Right now I am serving my second term as Vurra Sub-county district councillor,” he says.

First salary

“I earned my first salary of Shs1,300 when I was a teacher at Kabalega Secondary school in 1978. At the end of the month I found myself remaining with Shs600 because money had value then. There were also incentives teachers used to get which motivated them to love their work.”

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