My long
journey through education.
I was one of
only three students
who were selected
from Nyegezi, to
proceed to higher
Secondary education (Standards
XI and XII), at
another Missionary Secondary
School located near
Dar Salaam, known
as St. Francis College, Pugu.
There were only three
such Schools in
the whole of
Tanganyika, namely, Tabora
Boys Secondary School
located in the
town of Tabora,
which was operated
by the Government.
The other was Minaki Secondary
School, located in
Kisarawe District, operated by the
UMCA Missionaries; and
the third was
St. Francis College Pugu, operated
by Catholic Missionaries,
the Holy Ghost
Fathers. These senior Secondary Schools
were preparing students
for what was
known as the Cambridge
School leaving Examinations,
which were
taken annually by
all Standard XII
graduating students throughout
the then British
Empire. Thus the curriculum, which was entirely
British oriented, included
subjects such as The
History of the
British Empire; and English
Literature; in which Shakespeare’s
books were dominant.
My first contact with
Mwalimu Nyerere.It was during my time as
a student at
St. Francis College Pugu, that I first
came into contact
with Mwalimu Julius
Kambarage Nyerere, who
was later to become
the
founder - President of our great country. But I will return
to this story
a little later.
Let me first describe one other unusual advantage,
which came my
way wholly unexpectedly during
my student life,
namely the willingness,
and readiness, of different
employers to accept
me for ‘temporary
employment’ during the
School vacation periods.
The offers of temporary employment.
This advantage started accruing to
me soon
after I had entered St. Francis
College Pugu. Apparently, my fast leaning and
firm grasp of the English
language, is what made
me an attractive
candidate to employers
seeking qualified personnel
for clerical jobs. There was a
large cotton ginnery
establishment at Murutunguru
in Ukerewe, managed
by “Ukerewe Cotton
Company’, whose Manager
at the material
time was an
Englishman called Jack
Leach. Among his
African employees was my
relative, one Pauline Magere.
Thus, while I was on my
first holiday break
from Pugu Secondary
School, I went one
day to visit
the said relative
at his workplace;
and he decided
to introduce me
to the Manager,
as a student
from a Senior Secondary
School. Manger Leach got interested, and chose to
address me in
English, and found
out that I
was quite fluent
in that language. He must
have been impressed,
for also asked
me if I
would like to
work with
them at the
Ginnery, whenever I
was on vacation.
I accepted the offer, and
was told to
submit a written
application for temporary
employment, which I did
the next day,
and got employed.
But that was only the
beginning, for the
subsequent School holidays,
I received similar
offers from
the District Commissioner
of Ukerewe District, Mr.
Donald Barton, where I was assigned
to serve in
the Chief Clerk’s
office; and, after my admission
to Makerere University
College, I continued
receiving similar offers
from the University
College Administration
itself.
One thing that
my temporary attachment
at the D.C.’s office
also enabled me
to learn, was
to acquire considerable
understanding of some
of the basic
skills in the field of
Public Administration, which
I made good use of
when I subsequently
became an Administrator
myself. The most distinctive lesson
was the high
level of administrative efficiency (both
at the District
as well as
the Provincial level),
that was displayed
in a crime
incident which I
personally witnessed, and
which made an
indelible imprint on
my young mind.
A
bizarre murder of an Indian shopkeeper,
had taken place
at Kisorya, a
trading center on the
mainland side of Ukerewe
District. Initially, the D.C. mistakenly
thought that the murder
was probably politically motivated,
so he quickly
called the Provincial
Police Headquarters in
Mwanza, on the
police radio telephone.
And, just about
an hour later, a Cessna
aircraft
landed at the
Ukerewe airstrip, bringing
two police detective
personnel who, after only about thirty- six
hours of thorough
investigation, were able
to establish the
identity all the
people who were
responsible for that
crime, plus their
stupid motive for doing
so: jealousy for
a woman prostitute! To me,
the speed with
which this matter
was dealt with and
concluded, was absolutely impressive,
and a lesson
in administrative efficiency. We can
now return to
the story of
my first introduction
to Mwalimu Julius
Nyerere at Pugu
Secondary School.
Mwalimu Nyerere was
my teacher.
Mwalmu Nyerere had
just joined the
teaching staff at St. Francis College Pugu, when
I joined that
school at the
beginning of 1953.
He was assigned to teach
History to our
class. In those days,
each classroom had only
twenty five students;
which made it
possible for the teacher to
pay get to
know the ability
of each individual
student. Apparently, I was doing
very well in
our class, hence
I soon attracted
his attention. Thus,
towards the end of
my second school year (when I was
in
Standard XII), the
Ministry of Education
in Dar es
Salaam advertised the
availability of scholarships,
which had been
offered by the
Government of India,
for those Tanganyika students
wishing to pursue
their degree courses
in that country.
Mwalimu Nyerere had seen a
copy of the
advertisement that had been sent
to the school.
Because
he was pretty
sure that I
would pass the
Cambridge examinations and therefore qualify
for one of those
scholarships, he called
me to his
office, and
encouraged me to
apply; which I surely did. I was subsequently
called for interview
at the Ministry
of Education Headquarters,
which I passed;
and thus secured
a scholarship to
study for a
Bachelor of Laws
(LLB) degree at
Poona University; subject,
of course, to
passing the pending
Cambridge Examinations at
the required level.
When those results
eventually came out,
I had passed the
said examinations with first
class distinction; and
was accordingly selected
to join Makerere
University College. I chose to
go to Makerere, for the
reason only that
it was much nearer home
than far away Poona
in India. Even
during those old days,
it was a
fairly simple trip
by boat to
travel from Ukerewe
to Makerere in
Kampala, which is
just on the
other side of
the shared Lake
Victoria. Furthermore, no passports, or
other travel documents,
were required; plus
the fact that
the currency used
in Tanganyika and
Uganda (and Kenya),
was the same
East African shilling.
But beyond that, I was also attracted by Makerere’s exceptionally
high prestige, as
the sole University
Institution serving the
whole of East Africa
(Kenya,
Uganda, and Tanganyika) at
that time.
My Sojourn at
Makerere University College.
Because
all Secondary education in
East Africa terminated
at Standard XII,
Makerere University College
had designed a
progamme of two
years , followed by
a matriculation examination,
success in which
then enabled a
student to proceed
to the three-year
degree courses in the
Arts and Social
Sciences. Many of the students,
including some of my colleagues
with whom I had come
from Pugu Secondary
School, failed to
qualify for the
degree courses, and
were, instead, offered
alternative non-degree courses
in the teaching
profession. As for
myself, I was
selected to join
a special degree
programme, which had just been introduced
at the
College by London
University (to which
Makerere University College
was affiliated), consisting
of a single-subject degree.
Students were not allowed to
apply for a programme
of their choice.
Instead, it is the
Professors of the
specified subjects who
chose their participants, based
entirely on the
student’s ability in
the relevant subject.
I was selected for the
History Degree course;
and was
therefore enrolled for
what was designated
as “B.A. (Honours) (History)
degree” of the
University of London.
But before that,
during the two-years
matriculation course on
campus, there occurred two
memorable events which
are worth putting
on record; and one other social event,
which occurred off- campus
(while I was on the regular vacations
at home in Ukerewe).
The
two academic
events that
happened on campus
were: (a) my
winning the first
prize in an essay-writing
competition, and (b) my
selection to join
the newly established
“single-subject honours degree” ,
which I have already
discussed above; while the
socio-political event was my election
to the leadership
post of Secretary-General of
the Students’ Organization, Makerere
Students’ Guild.
The Social Science Department had arranged an
essay-writing completion among
all the students,
on an Economics
subject whose title
I cannot now
remember. I participated in that competition, and
won the first
prize of East
African shillings five
hundred, a very
decent amount of
money in 1956.
The newly introduced
single-subject academic programme in the Arts
and Social Science
Department was, rather
surprisingly, designed to be an
intellectual elite programme.
Students were not allowed to
apply to
join that programme.
As already stated above, the programme
participants were selected
by the Professors
of the relevant
subjects, purely on
the basis of their
academic competence
in that subject.
Only three of us were selected
for the inaugural
“History Honours Degree”
course, namely myself,
and two
colleagues from Kenya.
The relevant socio-political event
was my election
as Secretary-General of
the Students Organization, known
as Makerere Students’ Guild. This happened in the
third, and final
year, of my
degree course. In the
course of my
leadership of the
Student Organization in
that capacity, a
World Students Conference
was convened in
Lima, the capital
city of Peru,
in South America.
The preparations for travelling to
South America exposed me
to exciting new
life experiences, including
the acquisition of a passport, the
possession of foreign
currency, and the
novelty of long
distance travel by
air.
But beyond that, and far more
important, was the
fact that this
student leadership intervention
helped to build the
foundations for basic
leadership skills, which gave me very good
grounding for my
subsequent career as
a leader in
various top positions
at the national
level.
The off-campus events were (a) my temporary
employment at the D.C.’s
office in Ukerewe,
which I have
already referred to
above, and b)
My hastily arranged
marriage to a fiancée, who was
in a hurry to
get married!
This happened
on 12th May, 1959; when
I had gone home to
pay condolences to
the family of
my cousin Sylvester
Mashauri, who had unfortunately died
in a motorbike
accident in Kigoma District, where
he was working as
a Medical Assistant
in a Government
Hospital.
Because of the offers
of vacation employment
by the Makerere
College Administration referred
to earlier, I
was usually spending
my vacations working
at the College itself. But on this particular occasion, I
had received my
employer’s permission to be
absent for just
one week, in
order to visit
my bereaved family
in Ukerewe. And that
is when the unexpected
happened, when I
was suddenly put
under great pressure to
get married immediately; against
my original plan
of getting married after graduation. But, in the
circumstances of the
moment, I willingly bowed to
the pressure, and
got married. However, the marriage
subsequently ended prematurely
in a divorce
by the High Court. Furthermore, I initiated another
divorce process through
the court system
of the catholic
church; at
the conclusion of which, divorce
was granted, and,
consequently, I was
given permission to
contract another Christian
marriage.
To be continued
next week.
piomsekwa@gmail.com/0754767576.
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