School results should spark critical debate on our education system

When I look around the education choices my parents made for me, I look back with improbable gratitude. Even where I may have disagreed, or may share a different set of values, their core beliefs are much respected.

More intriguing is the specific hard work the teachers put in. I think for my parents, nothing short of “national” expert cut it, in fact, my teachers shared this huge ego and pride, and were fiercely competitive.

University education was a privilege limited to just 2,000 students. Prized courses like Law were open to just 45 students a year. I took up residency in Law School as number 39 out of those 45 shortly after turning 19 years.

But the debate over what this all means after Uganda National Examination Board (Uneb) cut several high profile schools short is critical to the future of the values our education system espouses. First is the rigour associated with English prep schools that is waning. Looking at the Primary Leaving Examination (PLE), one quickly realises that the creativity of the exams is waning. Second, even the quality of the examination stock is falling. The scripts have random typos encouraging the culture of laziness, I could never associated with any of my teachers.

In nursery school, I was tutored by Ms Ethel Sempebwa. Two of my classmates Keith Kibirango and Edward Mperese Nsubuga became lawyers. In Primary One, Ms Zziwa, the Kampala Parent’s Lower Primary teacher, was and still remains a national expert in her class.

In Upper Primary at Savio were several ferociously competitive gentlemen, two were Brothers of Christian Instruction, Claude Leroux, a French Canadian, and Vincent Kirangwa whose strength was English, even though Claude added Mathematics.

Then there two very young men, one of whom is still teaching - Sebulwadde and Patrick Baraza, who were just 21 years old fresh from Busuubizi TTC.

Savio had two other teachers of major acclaim Sekakoni and Lawrence Nkoola, who excelled in teaching Maths and English, in fact Nkoola, a Muganda middle aged man, probably spoke much better English than Claude the French Canadian who still speaks with a profound Quebecois accent.

In secondary school, we came into contact with a different set of circumstances. Hyperinflation at the time of the currency conversion turned teachers into paupers. We met teachers who had trouble brushing their teeth and combing their hair, but their dedication remained even though there was this random wonder why things were the way they were.

Living in spotty quarters with overgrown grass. Each had a story to tell of their bad fortune. In St Mary’s College Kisubi, the message was the same, you had to fly on your wings. The gate to Makerere was so small and easy to miss.

We were competing against the entire country. Today it looks so easy, that one small group has a two-star general, an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member, a National Council of Sports (NCS) member, two executive directors in major commercial banks, scores of doctors, engineers, architects, etc, one of whom Alex Niyonzima nearly drowned in MV Templar, the disaster of last year.

We had this transplant from Kings College Budo now a city architect Batanudde Kironde with whom we were tasked to collect weather readings in A-Level, who wrote as fast as a typewriter. Uneb was little match for him. But the emphasis on merit also meant everyone got better, it was the experience people have when they play golf with Tiger Woods.

This self-assuredness was the magic of the time. Liberalising the school system that favours richer children has removed some of this merit. So has the distortion of the merit system at admissions favouring children of the well- connected shutting out children of ordinary Joes.

It is a national security scandal, that the Minister of Education must urgently address that the next Einstein is at a Bible school or being home-schooled rather than doing what the legends of yester years like Coutinho, Ntimba and others accomplished in a national school.

Mr Ssemogerere is an Attorney-at-Law
and an Advocate. [email protected]