Nicholas Sengoba
Last week the press was awash with matters from the Primary Leaving Exams (PLE). The media as is the wont, published pictures of the PLE stars with the caption ‘We made it.’ Parents and teachers alike, hoisted victorious candidates in the air, thanking God and all manner of factors for this successful milestone.
Many years ago, a popular cartoonist called Fred Ssenoga, who went by the pencil name ‘Snoogie’, drew an interesting cartoon. It had a befuddled village child under the weight of a ramshackled metallic box, following an aggrieved parent. Said the parent, ‘Let’s go to Kampala where exams are easier!’ That was after the released PLE results of that year put the rural bush schools in their usual place.
At the back of the academic bus. It has always been a given that schools in the urban areas, in and around the capital city, always lead the way in national exams. They have well-paid teachers. Parents with better incomes who are willing to part with huge amounts of money to support school programmes. They enhance the packages of the teachers to motivate them to teach and pass pupils. The pupils in modern urban areas are less likely to wake up early, to do house chores like fetching water and firewood before walking long distances, barefoot to school, arriving too tired and hungry to learn.
The townies will have a breakfast of a balanced diet with cereal, fruits, and all, to pick from. The villager will subsist on cassava and sugarless tea, before settling for half-cooked posho and weevil-infested beans for lunch. They will most probably be dropped to school by car, have the textbooks, and present teachers to prepare them for learning. In schools in the provinces, teachers are likely to be absent, moonlighting as boda boda riders and builders at sites or waste away as village drunks. Success in town is guaranteed. Not this time.
Kampala and Wakiso, which have always naturally been the leaders of the pack, were very disappointed because the number of perfect 4s had gone down drastically. There were even pupils who had never scored anywhere below 5 who got 7 or 10 and cried their hearts out. Meanwhile, in the rural schools, the perennial failures made some significant gains which added salt to the wounds of their often pampered urban colleagues. Our society, which attaches a lot of importance to results from exams, dived deep into analysis.
So bad it was that many parents and teachers in the urban areas wept. They accused Uneb, the exam body, of manipulating the results to show that UPE was succeeding in order to secure more donor funding. They called for fresh marking and grading to address the ‘unfairness.’
As we grow older, life teaches us many lessons. Many times, the school system, especially in the A class schools, helps us learn many things and pass exams. They raise our expectations and prepare us to be ‘successful’ . In so doing they shield us from a very important reality which a theologian; the Rev. Can Amos Kasibante once told me. Knowing the importance of life being unpredictable!
Many times the ‘good schools’ protect the pupil from hardship and failure as they march on and strive to create a perfect world for them.
Meanwhile, the counterpart in the villages is ever on the backfoot; moving between hardships. They are learning resilience and taking disappointment as a way of life. In these circumstances, as is said in the famous poem Desiderata, you may learn the hard way ‘to nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.’
When they get into the real world after school where the success of activities of the day and achievement are not determined by the grade of a test, they have a level of preparedness that a protected child does not. You soon discover the ‘inaccuracy’ of what you were always told about studying hard. That it would be the ticket that would save you from being like ‘those despicable lumpens’ who no one wants to be associated with, marry, or employ. That for some, they kept their part of the bargain but it did not work out as expected is very hard to take.
Life is unpredictable. What if after all your hard work, you fail to get a job or the one that you studied for, does that make you a lumpen? What if you lose your job or your business which you have built over the years out of honest hard work and ingenuity, collapses? What if you do not get the tall handsome man or beautiful well-mannered, God-fearing girl with a big backside, who you dreamt of marrying? How do you handle the ignominy of your marriage breaking down, say due to infidelity involving a housemaid or shamba boy?
What if your spouse finds someone better and leaves you? What if you fail to get children which makes everyone talk and laugh at your infertility? What if the child in whom you have a lot of hope gets a mental breakdown or becomes an alcoholic or dies unexpectedly? What if you suffer from an incurable disease like cancer yet you have lived all your life eating and living healthy? What if someone younger and prettier became the boss’ favourite?
What if you end up being prosecuted for a crime you did not commit?What if the people you call friends betray you and are not there for you in your hour of need yet you broke your back for them? What if your parent who was your rock from childhood, dies?
As we grow older, this reality is forced on us. Every so often there is a heart-breaking story of someone with whom ‘we herded goats and cows back in the day.’ Life took an unexpected turn and they felt overwhelmed. They felt that everyone else was doing well except themselves. That now the world was judging and laughing at them. So, they did not seek help because ‘no one wants to be associated with failures’. They were prepared for success. There was no contingency plan, or a ‘plan b’. When the need for one arose, the reserves were found empty so they gave up.
They started by isolating themselves, drowning in depression, taking to the bottle, and later going to an early grave, as broken (wo)men, in an unforgiving world. This is why the parents of the children who were expecting flying colours but ended up with pedestrian hues should take heart.
At times failure, especially when the children still have the protection and guidance of parents, is not bad. It prepares them for the other side of success which always visits all of us at some point in life. As Imran Khan, the Pakistani star cricketer turned politician said, ‘Each set back is an opportunity to analyse yourself, find out where you went wrong, and come back even stronger.’
The earlier they learn this while you are around the better, for life is unpredictable. You are not sure what it will throw at you.
Mr Sengoba is a commentator on political and social issues X: @nsengoba
