Masters of Chalk:Philip Okech, He steered Sir Samuel Baker at the peak of LRA

At the height of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency in northern Uganda in 1996, when many people would not dare stay in the region, Philip Okech, now 69, stood his ground to see his leadership ambitions grow.

A former head teacher of Sir Samuel Baker School in Gulu District, one of the academic power houses, Mzee Okech, as he is popularly known, recounts his trails of leadership that saw the school regain academic consciousness amidst rebel scare.

Tough start
The educationist reveals that when he joined Sir Samuel Baker School in 1991, the school was tagged as one of the worst schools in northern Uganda with notorious students and teachers.

“On many occasions, head teachers and teachers posted to the region declined to take up the positions due to insecurity,” he says, adding that the school was characterised by indiscipline, including bullying that had eaten away its image. Students came and left the school at their will. It did not help that some of the students were grown up men who had families thus they were hard to control.

Getting to work
Nonetheless, Okech put his administrative skills to good use to register remarkable changes at the school.
“My first task as the head of the school was to counsel one on one some of the notorious students who used to wreak havoc and bully their fellow students at School,” he says. Within a period of one year, the school had disciplined students and bullying was no more.

When it came to managing teachers, rotation of class teachers did the trick. He also made sure that he removed class teachers, who were fond of heavy drinking during class hours and replaced them with well-behaved ones. On how he tackled the academic problem, Okech says. “My constant guide on how questions are answered and the weekly revision tests greatly provided the students with knowledge that improved their performance, especially in the science discipline which used to be the most poorly performed.”
After a long period without getting First Grade, at the end of his first year, the school came out with six First Grades at O-Level examinations.

Okech also formulated policies such as offering land to students who had difficulty in paying school fees to cultivate and later sell their farm products to the school.
He also improved the sporting activity of the school through giving scholarships to excellent sportsmen like athletes and footballers, a legacy that has been carried on.

Mzee Okech still recalls the year 1996 as his most dreadful moment at the school. At 9pm one evening, he received news to the effect that 20 of his students and a teacher had been abducted from the school dormitory by the LRA rebels.
Although 13 of the students and the teacher were rescued a year later, the rest have not appeared to date, a fact that still haunts him.

His teaching career
Mzee Okech’s teaching ambition runs through the family. His late father, Martin Luther Ojul, was a re-known teacher in the region.

After completing his studies from Makerere University with a Bachelors degree in Education in 1975, Okech was immediately posted to St Edwards’s Senior Secondary School Bukuumi where he had his first teaching career as a Geography and History teacher at O-Level.

In 1976, he was transferred to Manjasi High School in Tororo District where he taught for 16 years before being posted to Sir Samuel Baker Secondary School in Gulu as head teacher where he served for seven years - 1991-1997.

He was later transferred to Koch Goma Senior Secondary School in 1998-2003 before joining Duhaga Secondary School in Hoima District, from where he retired in 2009.

About Sir Samuel Baker School Gulu
Start. Sir Samuel Baker Secondary School was built in 1953 in memory of Sir Samuel Baker, a British Explorer.
Location. It is located along the Gulu-Kitgum high way, five kilometers out of Gulu Town. The school is a government aided boys school.

What former students say
“Not only was he a charismatic school leader but also a powerful preacher at the school’s Chapel,”
Nabison Kidega, Amuru Resident District Commissioner

“He is a highly gifted administrator who would identify student talents and encourage them to maintain it,”
Rev Wilson Kitara, Archdeacon Diocese of Northern Uganda

“His leadership was full of passion, which encouraged us to perform well,”
Godfrey Owot, Lecturer Gulu University