Head teacher who prides in being close to pupils

With more than 15 years’ experience in teaching, Anthony Kato Ssentongo believes that for any teacher to get good results from their work they must have a good working relationship with their pupils.
“If you do not forge a good working relationship with the child you are teaching, chances are high that they will not understand what you teach them. It is important for all teachers to love, understand and interact with the pupils well,” he says.

Ssentongo says this has been his strategy ever since he joined the profession and it has given him good results.
Born in 1977 to Henry Kigundu and Nalongo Kigundu of Bukerere Mukono, Ssentongo unfortunately lost his father while he was in Primary Three.
He was taken up by his elder brother who also passed on after a few years leaving him with no option but to work hard and pay his own school fees.

“My brother passed on when I was about 16 years old, yet my mother was a housewife who could not afford paying my school fees. I opted to do casual jobs so as to raise my school fees. I would collect firewood and sell it. I was also hired to dig pit latrines and that is how I managed to pay for myself throughout O-Level,” he narrates.
He recalls having missed his Health Science examination during his O-Level after sleeping off due to hunger and exhaustion and forgetting to wake up. However, this did not stop him from dreaming.

Overcoming his troubles
Like most struggling students, after Senior Four, Ssentongo did not continue with school instead he spent a year doing odd jobs to save money to continue with his studies.
It is during this period that he discovered his passion in teaching. Different parents used to bring him children to help them with Mathematics revision and pay him.
And in 2000, Ssentongo enrolled at Shimoni Primary Teachers College where he trained as a teacher for Mathematics and Social Studies. He graduated as a Grade Three teacher of Mathematics in 2004.
Indeed, he got a job as a Maths teacher for upper primary at Kireka Parents School from where he joined Global Junior School, Mukono.

“One of the parents of a child I was teaching at Kireka interested me in Joining Global Junior which had just started a year earlier. I passed the interviews and I was taken on as a Mathematics teacher for Primary Seven,” he recounts.
Among the objectives he set for himself as a teacher was total commitment to his job, to always be friendly to the pupils and to simplify what he taught. Ssentongo observes that many teachers of Mathematics give children abstract methods that they themselves cannot explain, a reason why some pupils hate the subject at an early age. He says he always localises his examples so that children can easily relate.

Greater horizons
His zeal at work has helped him rise to different leadership positions. He started as a senior man in 2007 and in 2008, he was elevated to a Director of Studies but was demoted to a classroom teacher after the pupils’ performance deteriorated that year.
But Ssentongo says the demotion did not demotivate him, instead it made him focus further. In fact in 2010, he decided to upgrade his studies at Kyambogo University with a Diploma in Education. Upon his return, his bosses requested him to mentor someone to teach Mathematics in Primary Seven as he assumes the position of deputy head teacher in charge of Academics.
In 2014, Ssentongo was promoted to head teacher of Global Junior School a position he holds to date. He is also pursuing a Bachelors of Education degree at Makerere University.

His school is always ranked among the best in Primary Leaving Examinations in Mukono District. In the 2017 Primary Leaving Examinations results the school had 171 pupils in First Grade out of the 185 that sat.
He advises head teachers in private schools to avoid sugarcoating pupils’ performance. “Most private schools have a weakness of awarding pupils with fake marks just to excite parents. This should not be done by professional teachers.”

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