Kamulegeya talks style of leadership

Two young women man a reception where parents, teachers and students sit in a queue to have a word with the head teacher. One by one, they enter and minutes later.  

Finally, it is my turn and I am ushered into a spacious office befitting of a minister. I am meeting Mohammed Kamulegeya, the head teacher of Kitebi Secondary School, Kampala.

At 42, Kamulegeya has served in the big and traditional schools, plus those hard-to-reach schools, as well as the “misdirected schools with the capacity to be model schools”.
In his 20-year-service teaching career, Kamulegeya strives to leave footprints wherever he goes.

Transformative
Four years ago, when he joined Kitebi SS the school was running on a shift system, with some students reporting for school in the morning and others in the afternoon. He set up ten classrooms to create space enough to accommodate the student population in one shift. He achieved this goal. 

The commissioner for human resource Ministry of Education, Jane Mwesigwa called this extraordinary. 

“We did not give Kamulegeya a cent, but he worked with the school board of governors and the parents to raise money to put up these structures and change the school operations in just two months. This is extraordinary,” Mwesigwa said while launching the buildings. 

“The development and transformation that we have registered in the last four years had not been seen before in the school’s 40-year history. Kamulegeya has given the school a whole new face,” says Hasfa Sseguya, the Parents and Teachers Association (PTA) chairperson.

Sseguya continues to list more achievements including construction of 40 classrooms, more than 50 water borne toilets for staff and students, two playgrounds have been put in place to enable students nurture their talents, plus a wall fence and CCTV cameras to improve security. The school has also been paved and tarmacked.

Four years ago, no teacher was residing in the school but 30 teachers have accommodation within the school enabling them to spend more time with the students. This has not only improved on the academic performance, but also the discipline. 

Academic performance
Kamulegeya has also put emphasis on improving the academic fortunes of the school through various interventions.

“We started by working on the attitude of our students, as well as addressing issues that are academic and non-academic. This included tackling the poor reading culture among students, poor notes making, listening skills, lesson attendance, time management and the negative attitude towards learning,” says Kamulegeya.

“Also we ensured timely coverage of the teaching syllabi, as well as the weekly assessment of the candidates. Other interventions include formation of group discussions based on the interests and ability of learners, conducting frequent guidance and counselling sessions, drawing a strategic timetable that offers more time to the poorly done subjects as well as revising marked students’ scripts, monitoring and analysing termly results and intervening accordingly. There has also been a continuous induction training for department members of staff, specifically on the pedagogy and the marking skills,” he adds. 

With the evolving technology and finding ways to improve attendance, Kamulegeya has introduced the electronic student attendance tracking system which allows teachers and parents to track a learner’s school attendance. Since one of the biggest causes of poor performance has been absenteeism and early pregnancies, the system which works as a roll call tool, registers the daily attendance of the students and teachers. 

Students are given cards to swipe in the electronic attendance device on arrival at school. The machine then sends a report to the mobile phones of parents and school managers notifying them of the students’ arrival at the institution. This sends alerts to parents and teachers as students sign out after classes.

Solutions-based approach
While launching the system, Ketty Lamaro, the Permanent Secretary of the education ministry, described Kamulegeya as innovative, and a hardworking head teacher.

Lamaro said his style of management and solutions-based approach should be emulated by teachers across the country.  

“Such effective school management is key in improving the quality of education in Uganda,” she said.

With these interventions, the school has grown to become the third biggest school in the country in terms of enrollment with 4,252 students, after Makerere College School and Kololo SS respectively.  

The school, Kamulegeya explains, does not have any loan from any financial institution, yet being a school under Universal Secondary Education it receives meagre resources that parents to the school pay voluntarily within the PTA framework.

“It is with these meagre contributions that students are adequately taught, fed on a balanced diet, infrastructure is developed, staff are paid on time and all recurrent expenditures are met,” says Kamulegeya.

Kamulegeya lauds setting up functional management system for such feats as well as developing and strictly following budgetary manuals which spell out the school’s budgetary process.  

“The support from the board has also been massive. You cannot do so much without their backing,” he says. 

Co-curricular activities
A proponent of holistic education, Kamulegeya has encouraged and availed resources for co-curricular activities in the school.

“We participate in all sports and games, though excellence has been more noticeable in music, dance and drama (MDD) where a number of our songs have been recorded and are now played on radio stations, TVs and other platforms such as YouTube,” said Jane Nantale, the deputy head teacher at Kitebi SS.

Other than MDD, Kamulegeya has invested in nurturing student talent.

“With our playing fields, we want our students to participate in all the available co-curricular activities. People are living decent lives through talents and our goal is ensure that we promote rather than sit on such talents,” he says.

Role model head teacher 
Kamulegeya has been hailed as a role model head teacher. 
“He makes a turnaround wherever we post him, and is always willing to be transferred. Kamulegeya is a unique head teacher. We need more teachers like him who think outside the box. He will greatly help this government,” Mwesiga says. 

The Rev Prof Samuel Luboga, the chairperson Education Service Commission, says great work ought to be appreciated. 

“Kamulegeya has done well in transforming the school. We need committed people like him to be role models to the rest of our workforce.  I am impressed by his speed, ability to team up with the people around him and the love for his work. 

Meanwhile, Dr Yusuf Nsubuga, the chairperson of the school’s board of governors, describes Kamulegeya as frugal, forward looking, transformational, a great human resource manager and passionate worker.

“Uganda’s education system needs more of the Kamulegeyas, for it is such people who turn around Uganda’s education.

Past work
In 2018, Mohammed Kamulegeya was appointed as acting head teacher for Kibuli SS, where he reassembed the staff and rebuilt the school image.     

In 2019, he was transferred to Kakira High School as a substantive head teacher, and in just seven months, he completed a new administrative block, refurbished extra offices for staff members with administrative roles as well as set up a multipurpose shade for meetings.