Kawaala school excels despite  fire trauma

Teachers at Good Times Infant School, Kawaala, Kampala, were speechless after the majority of the candidates passed in first grade, months after a fire gutted the school. 
Of the 216 who sat for their PLE at this school, 187 got first grade and 29 got second grade. 122 were girls and the rest were boys.
In an interview with Monitor yesterday, Mr Robert Mayiga, the head of academics at school, was excited about the results. 

“This year’s performance is really amazing and we thank God for this. This is beyond normal according to what happened to us. Even about 10 candidates who were rescued from that dormitory have really performed well,”
Ms Alek Mading Bol, a parent with a student who scored Aggregate 4, said it was hard to comfort her daughter and get her to recover from that trauma.
“When I reached school that day, I saw all the people, especially the children, were so traumatised.  My daughter was tearing and I had to comfort her though it was really hard, even for me,” she said.
She added: “We thank God that she has excelled even though she had such an experience and also the Covid-19 lockdown that led her to skip a class and be promoted to primary seven directly.” 

 “Before coronavirus lockdown, my daughter was in Primary Five. When schools were reopened, she told me that she wanted to join Primary Seven because she felt she was capable of performing,” Mr Bol said.
Ms Mun Nyajima Chieng, who scored Aggregate 4, said she excelled despite not studying during the two Covid-19 lockdowns and the fire incident that affected his mental health. 
Ms  Daphine Ketra Kalibala,13,  who also scored Aggregate 4, said she got traumatised after the fire outbreak. But prayers, counselling, and encouragement from teachers and parents helped her recover from the trauma.
Meanwhile,  Mr Ronald Mpagi, the principal of the school, congratulated all school stakeholders for their role in assisting pupils cope after the fire. 

 Fire outbreak
 In February last year, a fire gutted one of their boys’ dormitories. It killed 12-year-old Matthew Amanya while 55 boys were evacuated successfully.  
Witnesses said the fire started at midnight and causing wild screams from the vulnerable pupils of primary four, five, six and seven in the affected dormitory.
“It was really hard for us. We were all shocked and all our students, staff, and parents had a lot of fear and were unsettled,” Mr Mayiga said.
He said  the school invested a lot of time in counseling learners and  staff and also engaged  the parents to build confidence in their children so that they could recover from the trauma.