Cyrus Kituyi and Emmanuel Wefafa, both from Trinity Senior Academy in Entebbe got Aggregates, 12 and 14 respectively despite the tough Lockdown that left all schools countrywide locked, they instead used TV's and Radio's to study.
When the government closed schools last year in March, Cyrus and Emmanuel had to go back to their home district, Namisindwa in the Eastern part of the country to begin homeschooling amidst restriction from gathering and providing social distance with an impending national examination.
Kituyi states that he utilised the TV lessons to make sure that he got the best of the knowledge that he needed to study during the time for lockdown.
“I would tune in NTV and other stations depending on what subjects they were willing to offer and I got to learn a lot. Although I could not ask some of the questions of the topics I had not understood, I went ahead to ask my friends and also called the teachers who had given the lessons because they had left their contacts,” he said.
Shortly after the closure of schools, the government moved to provide at least 10 million radio sets to every household and 137,466 solar-powered television sets to villages in Uganda as the country awaits guidelines for holding the 2021 General Election.
At an estimated cost of Shs38,000 per radio set, the government would require Shs380b to supply 10 million radios for all the households in Uganda and 68,733 villages at least two TV sets, 137,466 TV sets will be bought for learning purposes. Their prices were discussed.
The money for the project was never released and soon the talk of the same fizzled as the time for examinations came close.
Since Wafefe’s village does not have access to electricity, he even 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 yesterday.
Cyrus Kituyi and Emmanuel Wefafa
“In my village, we only have cinema halls but they did not allow us to put on local TV stations for us to follow the teachings because they were showing movies. I had to depend on what was available at the moment,” he said.
The two students who both say they are from poor families that can't afford televisions say they had to seek help from the neighbors. They had luckily acquired sponsorship from Pure Heart Foundation, an organisation that helps to sustain hardworking students in school.
Mr Emmaniuel Wanyama the founder of the organisation said 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.
“When the lockdown came, I knew they would be disrupted but I encouraged them to continue reading because I knew where they come from. They have not disappointed but they would have even got better grades,” he said yesterday.
