Angella Nampewo
You never know how much a race has taken out of you until you reach the finish line. Once there, you will either jump for joy if you have the energy to spare or collapse and be carried off to the first aid tent, panting away and asking desperately for glucose.
Now that another set of Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) examinations has come and gone, such has been the journey with Covid-era candidates amid the introduction of the new lower secondary school curriculum. It has been a roller coaster for learners, teachers, and parents. Students had to quickly adjust to a new way of learning and answering questions. Parents were faced with report cards that were graded 0 to 3 as opposed to Aggregate 1 to 9.It has been several years of adjustment.
At Uneb, it has been a beehive of activity; with examiners going out of their way to change the whole language of testing and now getting ready to face the many versions of English in the answer sheets as students countrywide attempt to put their critical thinking skills to use. It is not yet over after all.
We wish the teachers success in the marking. I cannot wait to see how it all pans out at the exam release and whether the usual suspects will still score highly.
Allow me to congratulate learners and parents for surviving the ungodly class hours and the pressure to succeed. Different pupils and students across the country face different challenges. In parts of east, north and western Uganda, learners were crossing rivers and flooded roads to get to the examinations. In Kampala, we had to contend with traffic jams and the onset of November rains that attempted to sweep some roads away.
Several pupils gave birth before the exams and were seen juggling mothering and academic duties on exam day while some unlucky young ones missed their exams because unscrupulous school administrators ate their Uneb registration fees.
Schools are expensive nowadays so I would like to congratulate parents for paying school fees thus far and being the leading customer at hardware stores every beginning of term and year, buying hoes, slashers, cans of paint and cement for never-ending school projects.
And that was not all. There were school trips to Jinja, Lugazi and Dubai (for some), numerous textbooks and reams of paper. You dear parents are not just heroes to your children; you have propped up the economy.
Finally, to the teachers, I have maximum respect. It is not an easy job, especially if you are not a science teacher and your salary was not even enhanced in the recent affirmative action. Teachers dealing with these new-age Generation Alpha children born in the era of social media have a mountainous task upon them. The kids ask too many questions and have a vast amount of entitlement from all the exposure.
They are quite capable of taking what the teacher is preaching, comparing it with the messages out there and forming their own opinions. Gone are the days when teachers were the source of the gospel truth. It is now debatable and can be subjected to Google and ChatGPT.
This is the era of celebrity students, who have already made a name on TikTok and Instagram but who only remain in school because their parents or guardians say so. Otherwise, as you lecture them on vectors and Ngoni migration, there are many other places they would rather be and things they would rather do.
Still, except for a few cases, congratulations to most of the candidates, their parents and teachers who have made it through PLE, UCE and UACE.
