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Why has Gayaza High School stayed on top while Nabumali has gone to the toilets?
In the 60s and early 70s the Nabumalis and Gayazas of this world compared favourably even though Gayaza had the edge due to its missionary history and long-standing tradition of academic excellence. Gayaza, Buddo, SMACK, Namagunga (the Elite) still took the crème de la crème of the best brains but Nabumali, Wanyange, Tororo Girls, Ntare, Mary Hill, St. Joseph’s Laibi, Bweranyange, Kasasa, Kitovu etc (2nd World) got their share of stellar candidates and had a respectable showing at Makerere University (MUK) and beyond. Significantly, schools were in the business of teaching and any political influence that may have been exerted on any school was very subtle. The quality of leadership at both the Elite schools and the upcountry ones was also more or less of equal standard because MUK was still a respectable institution and most school heads had solid post-graduate qualifications from MUK and abroad.
Those were the good old days when mobility of students was the order of the day and Obote and Ruhakana Rugunda went to study at Mwiri and the Baganda travelled from Kampala to go and study in Kasasa, Kitovu, Laibi and so on. The education provision was relatively comparable all round and success could be found in government and missionary schools across the country. Graduates from whatever school in the country were guaranteed a reasonable chance of getting into MUK and most did by studying hard in whichever school.
The government’s neglect of education gathered apace even as the political interference became overt. Heads were transferred or replaced with scant attention to qualification or suitability for the job. The Elite schools remained above the fray by steadfastly holding on to their religious ethos and screening students carefully. Almost all of them were being run by indomitable and/or highly revered expatriate or local missionaries (Brother Kyemwa at SMACK, Miss Warren at Gayaza, Father Grimes at Namasagali, Sister Cephas at Namagunga etc) and that cushioned them against the more blatant government meddling. 2nd World schools were, of course, sitting ducks because they were 100% under government control.
Upcountry schools had already caught the economic cold in the late 70s because of distance from the capital and a lack of the solid traditional base that underpinned the Elite. The Elite also had the advantage of being able to seek recourse to alternative sources of income, unlike their 2nd World counterparts which relied entirely on school fees and government grants. The Elite owned (and most still do own) huge tracts of land, farms and other useful investments and contacts that they could tap when the going got tough.
During Obote II, political polarization seeped so deeply into every fabric of society that schools came to be associated with political parties. If you went to any school in the West you were UPM. At Mwiri you were either UPC or a closet DP. All the schools in the north were UPC as were the ones in the north-east. Kawanga Semogerere could walk with his head held high at Rubaga Girls and Lubiri Secondary.
One well-intentioned but ultimately shortsighted initiative was to abolish the burdensome (to parents) but useful (to schools) Parents, Teachers’ Associations (PTAs). These had been used by schools to undertake basic repairs to school property in the face of the promised government grants that never arrived. PTAs also were used to augment teachers’ incomes and give them a more realistic standard of living. Coaching was also banished and teachers’ incomes were squeezed even further. Unable to maintain their schools due to lack of funds, teachers fled to schools that allowed them to moonlight and coach surreptitiously and 2nd World schools sank quickly to 3rd World status.
Then the half-baked UPE project and, at a stroke, pronounced the death sentence to such stellar primary schools as Buganda Road, Nakasero and Kitante. The political condemnation of what had been reasonably priced middle class primary chools created a vacuum in the provision of education. Savvy investors (Greenhill Academy, Kampala Parents etc) rushed to fill it with private schools. UPE schools are still teetering but no discerning parent (or one with family silver to sell) is sending their children to them.
UPE destroyed all the worthwhile government primary schools, the pressure on the Elite schools became seismic. The schools couldn’t be extended beyond a certain point so there was only one area to look at; raising the entrance demands.
In 2006, SMACK took aggregate 10 and MCS’s was aggregate 13 in 8 subjects. The demise of the regional 2nd World schools is directly behind these extraordinary cut-off aggregate points.
That is why Gayaza HIgh School still passes 100% of her students in the first grade and Nabumali High School fails whatever students it fails. None of the governments in Uganda’s recent past have helped Nabumali’s cause and there seems no light at the end of the tunnel. There is no longer any decent primary school outside of a 30 mile greater Kampala radius. USE(Universal Secondary Education) should ensure that the same fate befalls the senior secondary sector.
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