Schools affected by fires drop in A-Level examination ranking

Inferno. At least six schools were ravaged by fires that burnt their dormitories last year.

All the schools that were gutted by fires last year have dropped positions in their Uganda Advanced Certificate of Examination (UACE) performance.

At least six secondary schools were affected by the fires that burnt down their dormitories, including those in which Senior Six candidates resided last year.

The six schools include: Merryland High School in Entebbe, Kawempe Muslim Senior Secondary School, Moyo Secondary School, St. Stephen Secondary School Bajja, Light College Katikamu and Seeta College School.

Kawempe Muslim Senior Secondary School, which is often above the fifth position among the top UACE performers, lingered in the 12 position, results released this week show.

The school suffered two fires that burnt down students’ property and books, which prompted the school administration to suspend some of the students.

Mr Salim Nabisa, the director of studies at the school, said the fire did not only affect the students psychologically but also cut short the programmes meant to orient them for the major examinations.

“We often organise programmes, including counselling and revision for our students in the third term to acquaint them with skills to tackle examinations. Due to the fires, these were short-lived,” Mr Nabisa said.

Merryland High School was another top known performer that dropped places this year from the 40th position the previous year to 184th position. The school dormitories, including those of Senior Six students, were burnt twice last year.

Although Mr Dalton Ssegawa, the director of Merryland High School, conceded that fires may have partly affected their performance, he said their goal is to work on a recovery.

“I don’t want to give excuses, but I think we shall recover,” Mr Ssegawa said.

Moyo Secondary School, whose laboratory was razed by a fire, lagged in the 1,334th position with only one student scoring a B and the rest scoring lower points.

Light College Katikamu, which is now in the 170th position, also suffered fire in which books and mattresses of students were burnt, prompting the school administration to change management.

The Principal Education Inspector of Secondary Education, Ms Frances Atima, said: “Our teachers and parents are not good at counselling, something that complicates whole matter.”

Deputy police spokesperson Vicent Ssekate said in a recent follow-up inspection of the schools whose dormitories were earlier burnt, police found that the administrators had channelled all resources meant for paying teachers on rebuilding damaged buildings.

abagala@ug.nationmedia.com