[LONG READ ALERT]
Why, ’tis a happy thing / To be the father unto many ...
— HENRY VI PART 3, ACT III SCENE 2
Greetings. Last Saturday (05th August) my family was treated to a commemoration event, honouring the work and legacy of our father, John Richard Isabirye. Both my parents are teachers and have spent their careers in service as teachers and administrators both in the public and private spheres. Having skipped Fathers' Day (and Mothers' Day) articles this year, this is a late contribution to those days.
We have been fortunate to have had both our parents under the same roof during our entire lives and the memories are quite many to dig from. I am the eighth of nine children, and as such I always assumed everything I went through or experienced they had seen plenty of times before. One time I was sent home from school (during Mr. Barnabas Langoya's tenure as Deputy HM at Namilyango, he was always reluctant to issue suspensions; he just sent home students who were unfortunate enough to be up to no good as the visitation day approached, and they were to report on the appointed day with their parents for a one-on-one meeting with him. Nothing went on your disciplinary record after the session.) Back to the pseudo-suspension; yes, I realised it was easier to notify my father than my mother - the nurturing instinct would prompt her to pick me from school whereas my father would just wait for me to travel to Jinja.
During my 5-day stay at home, we discussed my experiences preparing for the A'Level exams. There was neither scolding nor punishment. My elder siblings in similar positions had different experiences (one was denied a lift during his suspension, yet both he and our father were headed in the same direction; for most of them it was long lectures or extra chores, as the rod was heavily spared by him in the household). Perhaps he had grown old. But I would like to think, it was his parenting muscle in the long run. For parents who've been teachers as well, they have probably experienced all sorts of misdemenaour from children that nothing surprises them anymore. But in our session with Mr. Langoya, his message stood out. It doesn't matter how bright you are; but without character, you might not be able to achieve your goals. That message stuck. And as the celebrations on Saturday carried on, majority of his former students and colleagues echoed this message in varying ways.
Origins of the Isabirye Character
As with most Africans, the family name is a concept we adopted in the 20th century. The clan was the core. We belong to the Makiika clan in Busoga, whose totem is the Buffalo. Our words are Mpa ateghola, n'omugaiga y'eghola, translated as we all borrow including the rich, but laced with a deeper meaning of "collective action yielding progress". The clan name arises from the founder, named Makiika, and along with Namakiika are probably the most important names a clan member can be given. Other names include Kigenyi, Wakabi, Dhamusanga, Kafuko, Kamanyiro for boys; and Nakaziba, Namuwooya, Nakizibu for girls.
Our grandfather, Akisoferi Kafuko, was a man with ambitions beyond his means. He was educated up to Primary Six and then sought to join Uganda Police training school. While at police training one of his fellow cadets was visited by his brother who was smartly dressed in a sweater (might have been a shirt) with a red lion emblazoned on it. On inquiring, he was told that was the school uniform of then King's School Budo (prior to being renamed King's College). He so admired it and the way the fellow in the uniform carried himself. The brother to Kafuko's fellow cadet happened to be Godfrey Binaisa, future President of Uganda. His admiration for education stems from the character embodied by that gentleman that day. Dhadha Kafuko went on to serve in the Uganda Police and in the Busoga Civil Service as a Gombolola chief. He was proud of his career, but he believed he could have done better had he been educated. Given his police background, he always believed in order, discipline and a smartly dressed appearance. He ensured to take all his eleven children through school, and pressed them to have ambitions beyond his own.
John Richard Isabirye joined Kiira College Butiki in 1963 to 1966, 4 years after its inception in 1959. He was a resident of Nile House. 6 years later, he became a teacher in the School before he headed it for 20 years. pic.twitter.com/TXXBhrU6cZ
— NakanyonyiOldGirlsAssociation (@girls_noga) July 23, 2023
John Richard Isabirye, named Isabirye after Kafuko's own grandfather, is the second of our grandfather's children. He mentions he didn't have a name for the first few days of his existence, as Dhadha Kafuko was stationed in Masaka at the time. His childhood was spent in Iganga and Mukono, with his parents and his maternal grandmother. After Primary and Junior Secondary School, he was admitted to Kiira College Butiki in 1963. The school was just 4 years old, and his was the fourth Senior One intake. Butiki had been set up to cater for the rising demand of education in Busoga, and at the time Busoga College Mwiri was a national school taking in students from all corners of the country. As a new school, it had a smaller population and as such you could get to know everyone in your class and probably the school. There was even more contact time with teachers. The Headmaster, Mr. Robert H. Freak, used to host weekly dinners with students, to get to know them and their aspirations better. Our father carried a similar concept in his house; at the dinner table during holidays each one of us would be assessed, get to explain his follies and successes of the year, what they are grateful for. The Harkness table is not only in the classroom but can be enforced in the dining as well.
He wanted to go beyond where his father had stopped, and after his Diploma in Education from the Institute of Teacher Education, Kyambogo, he won a Commonwealth Scholarship to the University of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Education, and he mentioned trying out for the akapiira k'abazungu (Canadian Football or Rugby Football, both games were available at Calgary). In 1995, he would obtain a Master of Arts in Education Administration and Planning, from Makerere University.
Education Career
He returned to Uganda and took up a teaching position at his former school, Butiki. His subjects were geography, biology and physical education. By this time, Butiki had a bigger roll compared to his schooling days. Still, he believed the teacher must know all his students by name, where they come from and what their parents do.
There has never been an era in this country where teachers have had a fair share. The teachers' salaries have been underwhelming throughout the history of education in this country. Part of this can be attributed to the fact that the first teachers were missionaries; men and women who had sworn vows of poverty were happy to take home close to nothing in the 1920s and 1930s. The teachers who took up the positions after were lay people who had children to look after, and the African native teachers also owed a "black tax" to their families and communities. The economic slow down of the 1970s didn't help; there was rationing and people had to queue for basic necessities. Our father told a story of how people would walk for hours just to line up. Jinja College was closer to town than Butiki (3km vs 9km), and as such the Butiki teachers had to wake up earlier to beat their JiCo counterparts to the queue. At 14km, the Mwiri people were best served harvesting the sugarcanes in Kakira than trekking to town for sugar rations! But those times are behind us now.
Our father sought opportunities in Kenya; he interviewed and was offered a job. However, his father appealed to him to stay. He never reveals what was discussed at length, but as one of the elders, his siblings needed someone to look up to; an example close to home than one far away. I have observed our father appeal to my elder brother in the same manner; you have to buy a car/own a house, so that your younger brothers have someone to look up to. Delegation of responsibility through your elder children is also an important ethos that my grandfather and father have passed on to us.
His stay was richly rewarded. He became a Deputy Headmaster at Butiki, and in 1981 was named acting Head master. As the students returned for his first term as Headmaster, one individual pointed out "Isabirye is the Headmaster! Nga tulabye; the man knows every student by name!" Perhaps that was code for "we can't hide our impish behaviour from this one!" But it served him well; whatever the teachers reported to him in the weekly staff meetings, he already had a clue about.
Steward of Others
A parent, after all, is the steward of another creature's life
— Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics, Chapter 5: What Makes a Perfect parent
Our grandfather believed responsibility is best handled by married people (those were the days before Bukedde TV came to life and changed that perception). He urged our father to get married. A year after his appointment, he got married to Phida Naigaga. I have no regrets having two teachers for parents; we were on school holiday at the same time of the year and to me the normal has always been having both parents present.
Both our parents believed in delegation, and the role teachers can play in the development of their children. None of us was educated in Butiki for reasons of objectivity. Teachers are parents with hyper objectivity. He believed if one of his sons was schooling in Butiki and he misbehaved, a teacher would be faced with a dilemma. Discipline the HM's child which is the right thing to do and you don't know how your boss will react to this. Let the child continue down that path unchecked, in order not to antagonise your boss and the child loses out, and the teacher as well, because there is utility derived from shaping an upright child. To avoid these situations, my parents chose to send their children to schools where they would get objective treatment; perhaps had I been in Butiki I would have a clean record with no suspension from Mr. Langoya! After my father left Butiki, the old stock of teachers were keen on names like Isabirye, Kafuko and they wondered whether they were related to him.
On the Education of Girls
At the age of 50, our father had been HM at Butiki for 15 years, and he had 5 years until the mandatory age of retirement. There was an attempt to transfer him to Mwiri, which was blocked by a coalition of parents, teachers and students. This incident set a precedent, that has been repeated years later where the Butiki faithful can have a say in who gets to run the school. The incident was an eye-opener for one, he was a public servant whose mandate could be allocated to any place without being consulted. And as retirement was approaching, he needed to keep busy. Education is all my parents knew, and so they decided to set up a school that would occupy their time during retirement.
He had purchased a house in 1993 at Old Kakira Road, Wanyange village. About 3km from the house, on a hill, he acquired another piece of land to set up the school. The proximity would make it easier to supervise. What type of school to set up was determined by three factors. The school had to be set up before he left his position at Butiki. This would thrust him into potential conflict of interest. As Butiki was a boys-only school, he chose to set-up a girls only school; thinking of them as different education market segments. Therefore the professional ethos of avoiding a conflict of interest mattered to him. The second factor was that in retirement he was to perform a limited role, and our mother was to play a considerable role. The development of girls was something she would know more about than him. A third factor, surrounds income disparities in Uganda, and particularly Busoga region. In poor households, there is not enough income to send all children to school, and as a result parents have to choose which children to focus on. In most cases, the boys are favoured more than the girls. He believed at this stage of his career, he could use his platform to demonstrate to people the benefits of educating women and girls.
The school was setup in 1998, originally in the Old Kakira road home before it was transferred to its current site on the hill. This first crop of students proudly refer to themselves as pioneers, and have been a guiding example for cohorts that have followed in their footsteps.
By the time of his retirement in 2001, Nakanyonyi Girls' School was five years old and had presented one candidate class for the UCE exams. For Kiira College Butiki, he was leaving it having been part of it for 34 years of its then 46-year existence. He was rewarded handsomely by the Old Boys, with a vehicle.
Education is an important tool, irrespective of your background, this was echoed by Hon. Manjeri Kyabakutika (Jinja Woman MP and former student of Nakanyonyi). Our father chose to maintain many students in school even without them paying their school dues because of this belief. There are studies that show that students from poor backgrounds tend to lag behind in academic achievement compared to their more affluent peers. As an example, if a student is sent home until the parents have enough money to repay the fees, he is bound to miss out on the classes attained by his/her peers who paid school fees. The student therefore has to work over time to catch up. He sought to rectify this by offering students scholarships. It's a game of numbers; 99 paying students can condense the costs of 1 extra non-paying student. And if the non-paying student performs well in the national exams, it can thrust the school in the national spotlight making the school more attractive to both academically bright students and students whose income backgrounds mean they can afford to pay the school dues. By this principle, countless students managed to receive an education by our parents' generosity.
Conclusion
It is often said teachers never age, but I think rightly they never retire. They are always guiding be it in their homes or in the community. Same with parents; they never retire. Once you become a parent, you've committed for life to nurture and put other people's interests before your own. I have always known that as part of their background as teachers, our parents are responsible for a myriad of people way beyond their children. It was a pleasant sight to see that their efforts all those years produced upstanding individuals who have contributed to society. We appreciate the gestures by the Old Boys of Butiki, the Old Girls of Nakanyonyi, the former teachers of both schools, and the parents.
Before I left Jinja, I told our father that he put us in a difficult position. He "refused to fail while he's alive"; and as such we, the children, cannot afford failure or we will be judged harshly. Dhadha Kafuko had the vision, Isabirye built the character and ethos. It is our duty to uphold their legacy.
Ceteris. Paribus.
PS: Given that this is the first post in close to six months, I feel I owe the readers an explanation for my long absence. Having completed the rigours of graduate study, I believed I had earned some off time from cerebral pursuits for a while. I know it's an absurdly long explanation for writer's block but I shall be back on track, and hopefully with more constructive material.
