Government releases O-Level results. In Ntungamo District, Sekyondwa goes to pick his results from school. It is Third Grade. Aggregate 68. He is devastated! He goes home. Takes poison. Dies. His parents weep. His friends miss him. His head teacher recalls he was “an average student” because he also got third grade in mock exams.
Elsewhere, O-Level “stars” are starring in national newspapers (for a bloody full week), smiling and lifting each other on national TV and dreaming aloud about becoming pilots and doctors and engineers and lawyers and pursuing all manner of posh careers in the future. We can’t blame them! It’s either that or they are doomed. We told them that, we tell them that.
In Ntungamo, a family is burying a child because we – yes all of us – made it a capital offence, a sin (the General will soon declare it treason too) to get nothing less than a “good” first grade.
And some of these stars will go to A-Level expecting nothing less than 1AAAA, whether that involves excelling through “alternative” means. And on to the university they will go, buying or sleeping their way to first class or second class upper degrees, buying or sleeping their way into jobs…and at some point getting caught boxers or knickers down when they can’t deliver on the job…
Some of the stars sweated their way to stardom, they have it sorted when it comes to books, you know! Genes and all. We (will) envy them, rightly so. They will soar beyond the classroom and reassure you, we still gaat this! But some of the “legit” stars will also flunk in life, because all they know is ace exams and flunk in anything else other than pen and answer sheets (because we didn’t give a proper shit about them becoming all-round people).
To those ones we will say, eh but that dude had a brain mahn, I wonder what happened to him? Eh but that babe used to whip our asses in exams mahn, oba who bewitched her?
And some of the “fake” stars, the ones who forge their way into everything and everywhere, will surprise you by doing just fine and you will wonder, qwe, do you remember that babe/dude? Kale she/he was aaaaaaaa but see where she/he is now!
And we can’t blame them! Our education system is a single-formula affair. You either know the formula or you don’t. If you don’t, give way!
When shall be stop being so average? Oops, my bad!
Journeys Within 