Education

Greatness lingers only in nostalgia

Some students near the dilapidated buildings that tell of a once-great school. Below, Fr Grimes. PHOTOs BY Edgar R. Batte 

By EDGAR R. BATTE

www.monitor.co.ug

In Summary

There was a time when the school was regarded with mixed feelings by the public. The focus on co-curricular activities and the importance of confidence in the world out of school was not fully appreciated by some but the fruits of such policies have been seen in today’s society. Old students are represented in all spheres of professional life and leadership.

They are fairly lonely gates one walks through. A site of buildings grown old with algae, brown iron sheets, cows and goats grazing, and further on through a canopy of trees, to a group of men taking shelter. This is Namasagali College.
In the vast compound are a few students. This was once a prestigious college that was a top choice for many students. Reverend Father Damien Grimes grew Namasagali to popularity from the late 1970s to the middle 1990s when the school fell into physical shabbiness.

But even with a grimy and pitiable picture of a less luxurious-looking pool with green water and broken wooden support thanks to good termite efforts and changing rooms with grass at least a few inches long, this is evidence that the alumni of this college had the time of their lives. The list of alumni is formed of some notable names.

But this is part of the history of the 47-year-old college that was established in 1965. James Gaira has shared and experienced 32 of these years of history during which he has served as teacher and has risen through the ranks to become the school’s second-in-command.

Different origins
“This college started out as Kamuli College at the premises now occupied by Busoga High School. Later that year the school was relocated to its present premises and renamed Namasagali College,” Gaira explains. The school gets its name from locals who in the local dialect, Lusoga, are reported to have said, “Namusa gali” (I greet the train). Therefore the school combines the two words to get Namasagali.

“The school was started by the Busoga local government and asked the Mill Hill Fathers to second someone to lead the school. Reverend Father Neville was the first head teacher of the school. He stayed for only one year and in 1966 Reverend Father Damien Grimes took over as headmaster,” grey-haired Gaira adds from the history of the school.

When the Busoga local government was split in 1986, into Jinja, Iganga and Kamuli the contribution of the local government also fell. “This decentralisation affected the financial income of the school. Fr. Grimes was requested by the board of governors to charge high fees which left most of Busoga out because they could not afford. The board then devised a system where they offered half scholarships,” Gaira adds.

Still many parents in Busoga could not afford it. During the period the school saw a bigger number of students come from Kampala. The school fees were at Shs340, 000 per students but even then the school was running broke. Namasagali was a college that created an all-round perspective on life, be it sports, entertainment, academic excellence and even in public presentation.

Swimming upstream
“This prompted Father Grimes to borrow money from three commercial banks, namely Uganda Commercial Bank, Nile Bank and Centenary Rural Development Bank. The school was financially constrained, which prompted His Worship Bishop Williecers to withdraw Fr. Grimes from the school,” the headmaster adds.

Fr. Grimes was withdrawn in 2000 the year that marked the beginning of the decline of Namasagali College. “The board requested me to pursue grant-aiding of Namasagali College from the Ministry of Education and Sports. In 2001, with the assistance of the then Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, and then area MP, Moses Kizige, the school was granted as a government-aided school,” Gaira recounts.

In the same year, 2001, Aggrey Kintu was posted to Namasagali College as the first government substantive head teacher, 36 years after the school was established.
Gaira states and Daniel Douglas Kaima agrees that Fr. Grimes grew Namasagali to fame and was largely the reason for its downfall.

“He was the headmaster and a lot more. He did not allow growing of structures. I wanted to join Namasagali College and we had to go to Nsambya at the Mill Hill Fathers home and Fr. Grimes would merely look at you and like you or not like you. That’s how he selected his students,” Mr Kaima, now headmaster at Kiira College Butiki, explains.

Down but not out
Geresom Musamali, a former teacher at Namasagali College, summarises it all, “If you know the feeling of watching fatally wounded giants steer, smile, and say, ‘We shall soon be up and bouncing about again,” then you know how I felt when recently I returned to the ruins of Namasagali College 18 years after I last taught there,” he wrote in an article in 2009.

But not all is lost. The school, which can accommodate up to 1,400 students, still has a running academic programme with 500 students enrolled, this time largely from Busoga. Efforts by old students are also in effect to revive the lost glory.

The school that partly boomed thanks to running on the National Theatre annual calendar, had a production by old students, Namasagali Students Association (NOSA), early this year. And the school’s alumni is also active online, on Facebook.