By Reporter
In the just concluded presidential address that happened last night, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni said schools are still not yet ready to open up and the address came two days after first lady and Minister for Education and Sports Mrs Janet Museveni released the senior four exams.
The release of the exams excited many but to Cyrus Kituyi and Emmanuel Wefafa from Trinity Senior Academy in Entebbe, it was a dream come true following the circumstances under which they studied after the closure of the schools. They got Aggregate, 12 and 14 respectively. When the government closed schools last year, they had to go back to their home district, Namisindwa in the Eastern part of the country to begin homeschooling.
Kituyi said he utilised the TV lessons to make sure that he got the necessary knowledge to make him pass.
“I would watch Tv and watch different subjects being taught and when necessary call teachers and also my friends and ask on different topics I didn’t understand,” he said.
Wafefe on the other hand comes from a remote village that doesn’t have access to electricity and when even when he tried to form discussion groups with friends who live in the same locality, their gathering was dispersed by the police.
“I had nothing to do but get newspapers where they could publish study materials and I capitalised on those. Despite the fact that the notes were shallow, they helped me do more research from what I had been given from school. I read widely into the notes I had from senior one to three,” Wafefe said.
The two students who say they are from poor families got sponsorship from Pure Heart Foundation, an organisation that helps to sustain hardworking students in school right from Primary. He was able to sponsor their education until senior four.
“When the lockdown came, I knew they would be disrupted but I encouraged them to continue reading because I knew where they came from. They are not disappointed but they would have even gotten better grades,” said Mr Emmaniuel Wanyama the founder of the organization.
He added that he had started with the students in their senior one after they passed their examinations and had always hoped they would perform even better.
The Minister of Education, Ms Janet Museveni, released the 2020 Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) examination results yesterday.
According to Uneb, 49.8 per cent of the candidates were male and 50.1 per cent female.
A total of 148,135 were under Universal Secondary Education (USE) while 185,754 candidates were non-USE candidates.