Kangai Secondary School sets goals after two OBs are elected Members of the 12th Parliament

Okello Joel, head teacher of Kangai Secondary School in Kangai town council, Dokolo district succeeded Okwir Angulo in July 2025.

Already six months at the school, Okello said he’s “grateful and thrilled” by the success of old boys Opito Vincent and Fred Jalameso – both of whom are MPs-elect for Dokolo South and Ajuri County in the 12th Parliament.

“At Kangai SS, we are here to groom leaders. Much as we also teach other people about their character and other things, we aim at grooming leaders such that when they move out of the school they are able to perform and they are able to sell our school,” he said.

To Jalameso and Opito, Kangai SS is their “second home,” the head teacher told tndNews, Uganda. “Much as they are going to Parliament and doing other things they are going to be our ambassadors. At least they remember where they came from and that is a great achievement for the school.”

The elections of the above OBs, the head teacher said, are going to motivate the current learners. “In terms of performance, we are not bad and history tells us that Kangai used to perform very well.”

He said last year (2024) within Dokolo district, his school was ranked second after Bata Senior Secondary School. This year, Okello expects Kangai to perform better in the district and even in the Lango sub-region. “We are here to conquer the region,” he said.

While some structures housing key learning materials and apparatuses are looking dilapidated, the head teacher told this publication that they have a “very big library.” He revealed that at Kangai, they are in a “world of competition” and that they have “a policy that ‘discipline makes each and every one to succeed’.”

Asked how significant the roles of old students have been to the development and transformation of the school since he came, the head teacher said he found “KASSOSA: Kangai Old Students Association” headed by Omoding George Rotary doing great things.

He [Omoding] is instrumental, he stated. “Every time he is with us. Last year when the school had O’level examinations, the chairperson of KASSOSA mobilised resources to help students.

“Apart from that they are mobilising support and writing proposals for the construction of boys’ and girls’ dormitories. I believe with their support Kangai will shine again. I have no fears that this school will come up. Those people are working tirelessly.”

With the two old students now awaiting swearing in as MPs in May this year, the head teacher thinks they will push for development.

Currently, there are 378 students at Kangai SS with a projection to reach about 800 by 2031. “It is not a simple task, I must tell you,” he said of the 2031 targets. “We are going to put so many things in place and with the coming up of the Heritage Centre in Kangai, it will also boost the development of the school.”

Other school management targets in the next five years are to send more students to the Universities and to the Parliament.

In the 2025 UCE, Kangai SS had 105 candidates and ranked number 1,964 countrywide. According to available results, it had 0 As, 7 Bs, 32 Cs; 43 Ds and 20 Es.

Old students’ leader speaks

Omoding George Rotary, chairperson of KASSOSA said he began leadership in 2023. Since 1985 when the school was established, he said old students had not organised themselves until after 38 years.

The association, he said, started through the formation of a WhatsApp group to mobilise former students who were scattered all over Uganda and outside.

“When I took over, the school had completely gone down. During our days, Kangai SS had a population of over 1,000 students but in 2023 when we took over we had 230 students. It was completely down,” he said.

What did they do after forming the association? Omoding said they started by mobilising parents, stakeholders and students and they talked to teachers. Unfortunately, some teachers claimed the old students had come to fight them.

“Later on when we brought them closer and talked to them they realised that we had not come to fight. We handled stakeholders and they were able to understand us.”

Omoding said their main target is to improve academic performance. “From 2023 when we came in, vigorously coordinating with all the stakeholders, the performance of 2023 improved, even 2024 was very okay and this 2025 we are expecting Senior Four results to even be better than the last two years,” he said before UCE results were released.

Kangai SS, he said, was one of the best performing schools in the Lango sub-region and as KASSOSA, they are determined to bring back “the former glory” of the school.

“Kangai has produced students from all walks of life: we have students who are now engineers, doctors, we have journalists – most of them came from Kangai SS.

“On a good note, the current two MPs produced by Kangai SS are part of my committee: Honourable Vincent Opito is one of the executive committee members, so is Jalameso Fred and they were among the first team in 2023 who came up and said, “What do we do for Kangai SS?”

He described the elections of two OBs to Parliament “as good luck for Kangai and old students are so proud of that.” Both Opito and Jalameso, he said, “were very bright students who became teachers.”

“Now that they have joined Parliament, our dreams, I hope will come true and that is what we have been longing for. We have been longing for support, for exposure and now we have high hope that Opito Vincent and Jalameso will be on our side as they have always been, they will not forget about Kangai SS as they have always done.”

Asked about the relationship between the association with the board and the school management teams and how often they coordinate, Omoding replied: “I am proud to tell you that the relationship between the former students and the board so far is so good.”

Dokolo South MP-elect, Opito, joined Kangai SS in 1993. At that time, he said: “We did not have enough classrooms to accommodate all the students”. “And I remember our first classroom block was a grass-thatched house in the name of the assembly hall. It had some supporting pillars, poles but without the wall. That was our best classroom to accommodate all of us.”

That year, Opito recalled there were 132 students in Senior One. Similarly, to other students, he said senior two and three classes also had the same structure – “grass thatched houses and we were even taken at times up to a place called Oli Farm.”

Oli Farm is one of the neighbouring villages which is now in Cwagara parish, Kangai sub-county, Dokolo.

The purpose of their trip to Oli farm was to carry poles and organise bundles of grasses to thatch their classrooms. “We did it several times. We were being led by one of our teachers – Okello Oceng and you would see that after rainfall the roof was leaking and it was unfortunate because at that time we had a material that would not accommodate stains.

“So, in the process of teaching cutworms would even fall down from the roof. That was the kind of life we started with,” Opito narrated.

Those who started schooling at Kangai SS in 1985, he said, might have experienced the same. “The first blocks that were constructed, first of all, it was a day school and it became a boarding school. So, when we joined in 1993 that was the kind of block we had.

Opito narrated that “they went through different discrepancies and developmental strategies employed by different administrators.” “We were under Reverend Ewena who was our head teacher and in 1995 he went and started Midland High School. We were left with the new school administration where Mike Anam joined in 1995, we were in Senior Three.”

Before head teacher Ewena left the school, Opito recalls that they had semi-permanent classroom structures. “Olal house, that was a dormitory constructed and Olal was the chairman Board of Governors –and a former sub-county chief of Kangai.”

When they were promoted to Senior Four, they left mud block classrooms and joined the permanent block. The block accommodated senior three and senior four. “Most of the students did not study at the time because of the structures but because of the commitments they had and the majority of us were day scholars.

“We could move. In particular, I was a day scholar throughout – for four years. Much as I was talking of dormitories like Olal House, it was meant for old students and we didn’t get that opportunity.”

In the senior four first term, while they were taking the first exams (mathematics), Opito lost her mum – Getto Omara. He said his mother was very supportive of him. “But still, that time I got position 9.”

Looking at the current Kangai SS and asked how he would like it to be in the next five years, his personal attachment to the school, MP-elect and old boy said: “One thing that I know [because I am professionally a teacher], if you want a school to grow, first accept to teach children regardless of their intellectual discrepancies, differences that they have; everybody can be taught and behaviors can’t be changed in a single day, not within a blink of an eye – it is a process so, there should first of all be teaching.

When children are committed to doing classroom work and other activities assigned to them, teacher Opito says they have limited time to do bad things. “An idle mind is a devil’s workshop. Secondly, we need to change our attitudes: we don’t need to bring magnificent structures to make children perform but we need to modernise the structures to accommodate them so that they are not subjected to any risks.

“We don’t need to bring teachers from Budo, Namilyango to go and teach, those teachers are qualified, they can teach and even change the academic performances of our school.”

So, what is important to teacher Opito? “There should be proper teaching, people should change their attitude, there should be discipline at school where teaching is going to bring discipline automatically.”

While there are plans to fence the school, he emphasised there is no need for Kangai SS to build a wall fence to show that they want to bring discipline, “No,” he said. “Discipline does not mean building a wall fence. How do you shape up the behavior, the moral values that we have in the children? How do you shape it? You shape it from the beginning. So, when you are teaching that is one. Two, when we change our attitude. We also think that our school is very important, the location is okay, the resources available are also okay. Teachers need to be supported.

Do you remember the government policy? he asked, and said, “Creating discouragement between science teachers and arts teachers. This is a policy we need to keep discussing not until arts teachers are also given a soft landing. We need to motivate them; motivation does not mean money. You can write a document, you can call an assembly and give an award to students, teachers for the better performances they have made.

Stakeholders involvement – bringing religious leaders, civil servants who are working within that area, and political leaders can propel Kangai SS to greater heights, he said. “But, handling school issues should never be political. I want to emphasize that when you are handling school affairs you don’t bring your politics there, don’t come and do something small and go to a radio talk show, saying: ‘I am the one who has done it. Because of my work that is why performances are like this.’”

Opito calls this “so dangerous”. “Do something because changing performances cannot be done in a day, it needs a couple of years and for a school like Kangai SS it needs six years to change the performance, beginning from senior one, push to senior two but you set a standard.

“We cannot go and advertise the school. I discouraged advertising school. Schools can advertise themselves due to performance. So, you cannot go and advertise a school and think students are going to go there. Teach silently and the performance that is going to come is going to advertise the school.

“To improve the school, teaching should be there, motivation should be there, people should change their attitude and involve all the stakeholders who

On taking Kangai SS forward through the association and personally as a Member of Parliament, Opito said: “I don’t need to distance myself even if the school performs badly, we still need to work together. One very important thing as OBs and OGs, we have formed a team and we have executives. I am going to be part and parcel of them. We are going to have a school visitation day. We shall be there as parents. I will be there as a political leader but not political in operations and that is why I don’t hold any position there.

“I want other people to lead, I will be there to support them bearing in mind that I will be very close to the Ministry of Education and Sports because a Member of Parliament can go to the minister of education.”

He stated that the old students have to identify things that can attract students. “We need to have things like sports, sports can be classified into three: players, trainers and managers. We also need to be exemplary.”

Leading by example and students’ trips

The executives of the school need to take their sons and daughters to study there, he urged. “Because you cannot tell other parents that bring children and yet you are talking your children out. We need to set standards that everybody admires.

“I am going to be part of the team. Whenever I have a space I am going to talk to students. We need to do one thing that is very important: we need to bring those students to the University, let them see what a University means, let them see what higher institutions do in order to motivate them to have a target in future.

“Just bringing 10 or 100 students from a village school (Kangai) to Kyambogo, to Makerere Universities…. that is going to be a very big reason

On the declining school enrolment and a target to have students by 2031, Opito said, “We don’t need the numbers but we need quality. If we can bring the quality, it is going to bring numbers. First of all, let us set quality with what is available.

“Biblically, God doesn’t give you something so big, God gives you something very small to test you, test your integrity. If you can use the small thing perfectly then the big ones come later. If he [the head teacher] can bring the quality, the numbers will come automatically.

“First of all, if you go back to 1985 when the school started you would ask how many students started with it. I think we started with one – the realising later. And was there any dormitory? No. People were sleeping at the center. My father’s house was one of the houses rented at the center for students… I think my mzee [father] gave the house freely.”

The board speaks

Dr Theresa Auma, the Board Chairperson of Kangai SS spoke to tndNews, Uganda, saying an emphasis has to be made that the school serves the rural community. “It enables the rural population, the rural young people to access education. That is the opportunity why we cannot allow it to collapse because the people who can afford millions.

If the school is functioning well, she said rebuilding it is a form of economic justice because it will give a chance to children from poor families to also access education and rebuild their future.

“We know the transformative power of education and that is the reason we cannot allow Kangai to collapse. Of course, poor performance, poor infrastructure and low enrolment are the major, major problems. How we got there, there are many factors.

“So, I think for us, we are going to really require a multisectoral approach. And I do agree that we need about five years to transform, to begin realizing good performance, and improved enrollment.”

The board chairperson agrees that most of the buildings are dilapidated and the environment reconstruction attractive for parents, even if you wanted to increase the pay.”

She further told this publication that they have started reforming the school through external funding for renovation and rebuilding. Once that is done, she believes that people will be convinced that the environment is good, safe and appealing for their children to live and learn which is actually what private schools do provide.

“They (private schools) make schools attractive. So, we are going to try that and we hope we will succeed in the nearest time possible.

Tapping one use of Information Technology (IT) is one of the ideas the board is mooting.

Being in the rural area, Dr Theresa says not many examiners will be interested in being located within Kangai. “What we are thinking of doing is establishing an ICT facility for some teachers and examiners to people’s students from a distance. They don’t need to be in Kangai for students to benefit.”

The start of ICT learning, Dr Theresa projects it in three years. “…because we are looking at fundraising. For now, the dormitories are dilapidated and we are already in talks with potential funders and hopefully the reconstructions of the new dormitories and sanitary facilities can begin within this year.

She added: “We cannot have an ICT facility when the children don’t even have a conducive environment to stay and as part of the renovation fencing.”

“Five years, I think we should be able to put Kangai back where it was, be able to raise the next generations of leaders just like it raised those of us who are in leadership positions in the society today.”

Commenting on the 2025 UCE results for Kangai SS, the board chairperson described it as “poor results and we own it up.” “For me, it’s a wake up results that we have been sleeping enough and we can no longer continue sleeping. That [results] is the current state of the school and it is the reason that we are doing whatever it takes to move the school forward.

“They are painful results, really. You see people’s futures being buried in those poor results,” she emphasised.