Teaching with selflessness

In 2017, Nelson Kajura was voted among the best teachers in Kabarole District in a survey conducted by the Fort Portal Municipal Education Committee. Among the aspects the committee was looking at, was the teacher’s commitment to teaching, his relationship with pupils and how students pass his subjects.
According to George Tinka Byamukama, the head teacher Buhinga Primary School, where Kajura has taught since 2004, it was not a mistake that he was ranked among the best.
To Byamukama, Kajura is an exemplary teacher who does his work with great commitment and passion.
And indeed Kajura, 35, believes that any teacher can become successful if they work with truth, selflessness and passion.
Kajura’s experience in teaching English has given him an upper hand at being both an internal and external examiner as well as a facilitator to help pupils in Primary Seven especially in English language.
“Though this may seem small to some, I find it so gratifying that at my age, I can be that teacher that schools want to call each time they need an external hand to help their pupils,” he says.

Education background
At the age of six, Kajura started his education journey from Gombe Primary School in Mpigi District in 1989. As a child, he says he grew up admiring his teachers who were always smart and elegant.
“My teachers were always smart and never seemed to age. I would always envision myself being like them in future,” he notes.
When Kajura completed his A-Level in 2001, his father (the Late Franklin Kajura) advised him to join the teaching profession which he gladly did. Though his colleagues were undermining teaching, he joined Canon Apollo Core Primary Teachers College (PTC), a decision he has never regretted. “To my colleagues joining a PTC was a last option. However, I had always admired teachers since my childhood and joining the profession was the only way I could emulate them,” he says. Kajura completed his course in 2004 and was lucky to join Buhinga Primary School one of the oldest schools in Fort Portal as a Primary Five teacher of English language.
As time passed, he was assigned to teach in higher classes Priamry Six and Seven thanks to his performance.
“In my school, the administration assigns you a class according to your abilities to teach. I am glad I was advancing. I joined as a Primary Five teacher but within two years, I was teaching in Primary Seven,” he notes. In fact Kajura now heads the English department in his school and is part of the Municipal Council Examinations Board.
Owing to the money he had earned since getting the job, he decided to upgrade his studies. In 2007 Kajura enrolled at Kampala International University for a Diploma in Public Administration which he completed in 2009.

More than a teacher
Through teaching English, Kajura has become a poet whom a number of institutions in Fort Portal contact during big competitions to write poems for them. “This helps me earn extra income which boosts my salary,” he notes. To his pupils, he is not just a teacher but a counsellor whom they approach when facing different issues.
“I always engage my pupils and associate with them like a brother. In case of any event, I always take photos with them, laugh with them and cheer them up. This in a way creates a special bond that always makes dealing with them so easy,” he explains.
Everything he does, Kajura says, is aimed at making him the best teacher he can be because to him, for a teacher to enjoy their work, they need to identify with their pupils.