The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
INNOCENT NAHABWE | COMMENT | Today (October 5) is a special day: World Teachers’ Day. As a child of teachers, this one is personal.
Recently, I took my mum to hospital. The doctor asked, “What did you do for a living?”
“I was a teacher,” she replied.
“Oooh!” he said, with the satisfaction of someone who had finally found the missing piece of a puzzle. He suspected her chronic cough could be linked to years of exposure to chalk dust.
Before whiteboards and screens, teachers wrote on blackboards with chalk. They taught, rubbed off the lesson, inhaled some of it, and started again. They didn’t know the possible health risks. And what options did they have?
For more than 30 years, my mother taught a nation. I have met doctors, soldiers, engineers, politicians—and even a few thugs—who swear she was the best teacher they ever had. Clearly, some mastered the lessons and then chose their own syllabus.
My dad was a headmaster. He turned around schools across Ntungamo and saved me from quite a number of canes along the way. Some former pupils probably still develop a rash at the mention of his name.
Teachers were reluctant to beat me because I was the headmaster’s son. Before I understood insurance, I already had comprehensive cover.
Teachers commanded enormous respect then. Many of my friends were also children of teachers. On modest salaries, our parents educated children who went on to change their families’ fortunes. Their payslips were small, but their ambitions for us were enormous.
Looking back, some teachers built me up. Others nearly knocked the whole structure down.
Sr Kisembo stands out. She helped me improve my English. It is still under construction, but you should have seen it before she intervened!
Dr Sarah saved my veterinary career. I hated the course and had practically given up. I was happy working at Red Pepper UG
and had begun negotiating a peaceful separation from veterinary medicine.
Then she called me to her office.
“Innocent, don’t be stupid. There are no stupid people in your home.”
That was the entire motivational seminar. No PowerPoint. No refreshments. Just a direct attack on my excuses.
I pulled myself together, tackled all nine retakes…yes, NINE…and graduated on time. Those retakes could have formed their own football team, with me as the exhausted coach.
Then there was Fr DD Bukenya, who discontinued me in S4. There were ten of us. That could easily have knocked me off the education ladder altogether. One of us never progressed beyond that point.
I carry no major grudge, but it reminds me how much power teachers hold. A sentence can restore a child’s confidence. A decision can change the course of a life.
Today, I celebrate the teachers who taught us, challenged us, rescued us and believed in us…. even when we were giving them very little reason to.
Happy #WorldTeachers’Day! Your salaries may never have reflected your worth, but the lives you shaped certainly do.
And to those still marking books tonight: may the handwriting be readable and the answers require fewer prayers.
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INNOCENT NAHABWE is a veterinary doctor and entrepreneur. This comment was picked from a post on X
