ST. JOSEPH’S SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL NAGGALAMA

HEADMISTRESS’ SPEECH ON ST. JOSEPH’S DAY AND 57TH SCHOOL ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS HELD ON SATURDAY 9TH MARCH 2024

Our Guest of Honour/ Main Celebrant, Rt. Rev. Christopher Kakooza; the Bishop of Lugazi Diocese,
The Vicar General of Lugazi Diocese / Chairman Board of Governors; Dr. Msgr. Richard Kayondo,
The Diocesan Education Secretary; Rev. Fr. Gerald Bwenvu,
Members of the Board of Governors and Parents Teachers Association,
The Dean of Naggalama Deanery and our Parish Priest, Rev. Fr. Ignatius Ndawula.
Rev. Fathers and other Religious Persons present,
The President of Naggalama Old Students Association; Her Worship Naome Sikhoya,
Staff members,
The Parents,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen.
I greet you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“OH LORD LET ME SEE AGAIN”, TO APPRECIATE YOUR BOUNDLESS BLESSINGS.

My Lord Bishop Christopher Kakooza, the Ordinary of Lugazi Diocese, and all our invited and distinguished guests. It is my pleasure to welcome you to our Patron Saint’s day celebrations of the year 2024 in which we are giving thanks to God and celebrating a litany of major milestones in all areas of the school activities guided by the theme “Oh Lord, let me see again”, to appreciate your boundless blessings”

I feel greatly privileged and humbled to share with you our heartfelt boundless joy resulting from the countless blessings from God manifested in our excellent performance in the U.C.E and U.A.C.E examinations of 2023. We heartily thank God for having granted us such a wonderful and stunning gift of merit on the 57th Anniversary of our school’s existence as we close the old curriculum. The fact that, over the years our school has been growing steadily in all its spheres is indeed rewarding and worth recognising as a demonstration of excellence.

Today, we are celebrating a special event; our Patron Saint’s Day. On this occasion, we would like to appreciate God for recognising our consistent effort and commitment to transform St. Joseph’s Senior Secondary School Naggalama into a national academic giant. This has been achieved gradually over the years through the strategic direction we have been pursuing to ensure the realisation of our dream, enshrined in our approved strategic plan; “The Naggalama we want”.

We feel this major milestone is an extraordinary feat hence our overwhelming happiness as we celebrate and enjoy the moment. We thank God Almighty for having made it possible for us to get to this stage, it has been indeed a long bumpy journey and all stakeholders can testify to this fact.

We owe our renowned academic strides, first of all to God Almighty for having propelled us to stellar performance. We believe that without Him, we would not have reached this far.

We also thank the Board of Governors who set high academic targets that the students and staff endeavoured to achieve. To God Be the Glory!

May I use this opportunity to welcome the new family members of S.1 and S.5 classes. Please feel at home.

A highlight of our profound academic achievement is here below:

(a) U.C.E. RESULTS 2023

We presented a total of 293 candidates for the 2023 U.C.E. examinations of whom 291 scored quality first grade while only 2 candidates scored second grade which translated into 99.7% first grades.

We congratulate and commend our best candidates (highfliers) who appear in the table below.

We wish to congratulate and thank our candidates of 2023 upon having performed outstandingly well as summarised in the table below.

We are overjoyed to report that all our best U.C.E. candidates have come back for their Advanced Level Education. We are eternally grateful to God for these excellent results and in a special way, we congratulate the 21 students who scored 8 aggregates in their 8 best done subjects and the six candidates who scored distinction 1 in each of the 10 done subjects. We applaud the school fraternity and all the other stakeholders for this profound milestone. We also appreciate our dear parents of Senior Four 2023, for their invaluable support and vote of confidence in our school throughout the four years of the academic journey. Besides, we thank her Worship Nalongo Naume Sikhoya together with Ms. Irene Kharono for having mothered the Senior Four 2023 class from the time they joined S.1 up to the end of the four year’s journey.

National Ranking
We are pleased that our school is among the eight top schools and National Academic Giants in the country. The New Vision of 4th February 2024, ranked our school the third best countrywide basing on the number of students who scored 8 aggregates in the 8 best done subjects.
We specifically thank God and hail Him for the six students who sat for their examinations while on drip because of sickness, but passed with outstanding grades. A case in point is Nabangi Jovia who scored 8 aggregates in her 8 best done subjects. What a miracle this was!

(b) U.A.C.E. RESULTS 2023

We are equally thankful to God for the 2023 U.A.C.E. results which are also excellent. We presented 192 candidates and six of our candidates scored the much coveted maximum 20 points! In addition, sixteen candidates scored nineteen points. The Daily of Friday March 2024, ranked our school the 10th best Academic Giant in the country premised on the schools which scored most principal As. This too is a remarkable achievement.

A summary of the highfliers is given below;

We would like to congratulate these candidates for having posted stellar performance as shown above. We are really proud of you and wish you outstanding success in your academic journey.

We would like to express our deep gratitude the parents of Nangoobe Lauritah Rebecca S.5 Biological class for having donated Shs.1,300,000= to the staff in appreciation for teaching their daughter who scored 8 aggregate in her best 8 done subjects. Likewise, we thank the parents of Kabuye Benedict for having donated chicken to the staff in appreciation for teaching their son who scored 9 aggregate in his best done subjects.

We also appreciate her Worship Nalongo Naume Shikoya for having donated Shs.4,200,000= to the best S.4 candidates who scored the much coveted aggregate 8 in their best done subjects, a pledge she made during the S.4 Prom Party as the chairperson of the Class Committee. Each candidate receiving Shs.200,000=. Chief Magistrate Naume Shikoya is the current president of NOSA.
In addition, we thank Eng. Mark Namungo for having donated three goats and a pig to the staff because of producing excellent results in the U.C.E and U.A.C.E examinations.

High value addition
It is worth observing that our excellent performance is an outcome of the dedication and assiduousness demonstrated by our staff over the years. Indeed they are a winning team. A candid and detailed analysis of the U.C.E. and U.A.C.E performance of 2023, juxtaposed with the candidates’ P.L.E. and U.A.C.E entry results clearly indicates that the school has continued to be a leading ‘high-value-addition’ institution. This has been the trend over the years.

Public University Admissions on National Merit 2023/2024
Makerere University admitted 32 of our students on government sponsorship to do professional courses while 11 students were admitted in other public universities on national merit. The admission of these 43 students made the school to be ranked the 7th overall in the whole country. See details in the order of Mass booklet.

Profound milestone to become a Science based school
We thank God for our improvement trajectory of transforming our school from being predominantly Arts based to a Science oriented one, which had always been our dream. This has enabled us to attract students with very good grades who want to excel so as to do professional courses in the Science field at the University. We thank God for having given us this break-through. The evidence is tabulated below:

 

This table also clearly indicates the improvement trend of our ‘A’ level enrolment hence realising one of our strategic objectives of expanding our ‘A’ level in terms of numbers.

Human Formation
We are also celebrating a remarkable improvement in the discipline of our students and staff. Deliberate programmes and activities are put in place to ensure that our school nurtures students into responsible and holistic citizens with a refined character.

We thank God that we have a niche in this area and our students reflect this moral aptitude and proper grooming. We therefore commend them for accepting to be formed morally and informed academically as a consequence of our unreserved and relentless effort.

We noted with concern that many parents abdicate their responsibility of nurturing their children to the teachers which makes the affected children unable to survive amidst hardships in life. If we raise our children the way our parents raised us, they would find a lot of difficulty in fitting into the current cruel world. Our parents raised us for the world which no longer exists. For this matter therefore, we design new strategies and ways of catching up with the current demands. For example, during our time of growing up, there was no moral decadence and crazy vices like homosexuality and lesbianism. We therefore call upon parents to cooperate with us to achieve the desirable results of raising up responsible citizens of refined character.

I am happy to inform you that our school has a fully-fledged counselling department under the stewardship of Mrs. Josephine Akellot Ocama with three resident counsellors. These handle students with psycho-social and psychiatric needs ranging from stress to severe depression. This is a unique arrangement of our school that was adopted after a realisation that the contemporary adolescents need some special treatment in a way of counselling beyond teaching.
We wish to acknowledge the spiritual nourishment, moral guidance and exceptional dedication of our chaplain; Rev. Fr. Vincent Wasswa. His love, efforts and principles serve as invaluable assets in shaping the character of our students and staff in school. We congratulate him upon making 40 years in priesthood.

Virtual Parents’ Meeting
We conducted a successful virtual conferencing meeting with parents on Saturday 7th October 2023. The topic of discussion was “The responsibilities and challenges of parenting the current children”. We thank Professor Anthony Mugagga Muwanga who ably handled this topic. We are grateful to the parents for having attended this meeting virtually in large numbers and for their prudent ideas during the discussion. The parents requested us to conduct these meetings regularly.

The Annual Academic Conference 2023
We successfully held our Annual Academic Conference on Thursday 13th July 2023. The main objective of this conference was to make a retrospective analysis of the academic performance with a view to generating new ideas and setting new targets as a way of building a solid foundation for sustaining excellent performance. The strategies and targets collectively set by the Board of Governors, parents’ representatives, staff and students delegates formed the basis of our operations in all our academic programmes.

Parents-Teachers’ Association Annual General Meeting
We held a successful Parents-Teachers’ Association Annual General Meeting on Sunday 23rd July 2023. We thank you dear parents for having turned up in big numbers and deliberated exhaustively and fruitfully. We thank Mrs. Josephine Akellot Ocama for having chaired this meeting very well. We wish to assure you that all the concerns and issues raised during the meeting were taken note of and are being addressed.

Corporate Social Responsibility
We dedicate resources to assisting the community around us to benefit from the school’s existence in form of enhancement of Corporate Social Responsibility. Our church harvest was used to construct a security perimeter wall fence around Loreto House at St. Joseph’s Catholic Parish Naggalama.

In addition, the students mobilise money from their pocket money to educate a seminarian in St. Mary’s Seminary Ggaba Major Seminary. Likewise, our students have contributed to mobilise money to pay school fees for their classmates whose parents are financially incapacitated.

Our S.6 Parents of 2023, old students, and the current students as well as the entire St. Joseph’s family, contributed enormously to over 12 million shillings towards the treatment of Nakawuki Bangi Anisha. She would have been now in S.4 class but was diagnosed with kidney failure and is treated on dialysis twice a week. Nakawuki’s family is very appreciative of this charitable gesture.

Congratulations to Bishop Christopher Kakooza upon 40 years in Priesthood and 25 years in Episcopate
We are happy to be part of the family to congratulate you my Lord upon having made 40 years in priesthood and 25 years in episcopate. Congratulations my Lord Bishop upon this remarkable attainment! We are direct beneficiaries of your religious life and good governance. Thank you for being a real parent who loves his children regardless of their status, background, age etc.

I would like to use this opportunity to thank you for helping many young, intelligent, disadvantaged and vulnerable children to receive quality education. We are impressed with your passion and dedication in developing the musical talents of these young ones.

Naggalama Old Students Association (NOSA)

We successfully held the Naggalama Old Students Annual General Meeting on 18th November 2023. Among the business of the day was the election of the new executive. These include:

1. Council Naume Sikhoya - President
2. Dr. Nunda Ezra Kibirango - Vice President
3. Dr. Ntege - Secretary
4. Mr. Lukabwe Daniel - Treasurer
5. Mr. Denis Bwanika - Publicity Secretary
6. Mr. Kutosi Micheal - Academic Secretary

We thank Her Worship, Nalongo Naume Sikhoya for having registered NOSA as a legal entity and the NOSA Constitution with the registrar of Companies. Since the old students define our brand, we shall continue to work with them and also maintain our close relationship with them so as to benefit from each other.

Infrastructural development

The school undertook the construction of a five storeyed dormitory for the girls on 09th September 2022. It is being constructed by HL Construction Limited, one of the competent and well established construction firms in the country. We thank this contractor for doing a commendable and professional job. The projected completion date and hand over of this dormitory is 8th August 2024. We believe that this will make our female students sleep more comfortably while at the same time create more facilities.
We thank you my Lord Bishop for having secured a loan from Centenary Bank to enhance the construction of this dormitory. The girls are anxiously waiting to occupy their magnificent dormitory.

We are glad to inform you that the boys’ dormitories were face-lifted. Some were re-roofed while others had their floors resurfaced in order to make them more comfortable and decent for the occupants.

We are indebted to God and heartily thank Him for enabling the school administration to always feed the students well on a balanced diet. This cannot be taken for granted due to the high level of inflation in the country that has led to unpredictable high cost of living. We thank God that despite all this, we endeavour to maintain a good standard of living for our students and staff.

Lower Secondary Curriculum

The Competency Based Curriculum is being assiduously implemented as directed by the Ministry of Education and Sports. We thank the teachers for their commitment in the implementation of this programme despite its several demands and requirements. We also thank the Board for providing a strategic direction, meticulous planning and timely financial appropriation to ensure proper implementation of this New Lower Secondary Curriculum and other academic programmes as well. We have decided to make the teaching of Agriculture and Information technology mandatory in Senior One to enable the learners acquire skills necessary in this area.

Our pioneer candidates of the Competency Based Curriculum will sit for U.C.E. examinations this year. Efforts are being made to prepare them for outstanding performance so as to remain a national academic giant.

Challenges

(i) Misuse and uncontrolled use of electronic media which has negatively impacted on and eroded the innocence of some of our children has promoted moral decay. We request parents to be mindful of how the children use phones and other electronic gadgets while at home.

(ii) As a school we are seriously challenged by the intermittent power supply from UMEME Uganda Limited. We experience daily power outrage and when it comes back it is either in low or high voltage which destroys property and disrupts our normal operation. We request for help.

Appreciation:

It is very rewarding to work under a profound result-oriented leader; Rt. Reverend Christopher Kakooza. He inspires us to work diligently for the school to excel in all its domains. We thank His Lordship for giving us our jobs and providing an enabling environment for us to work peacefully. We appreciate him in a special way for his invaluable role in the growth of the school’s physical infrastructure. His input has helped us to undertake the construction of the massive and magnificent new girls’ dormitory which is going to be the state-of-the-art. Your Lordship, we pledge to reciprocate your love by continuing to excel so as to take Naggalama to greater heights. We thank you Bishop Christopher Kakooza for presiding over this year’s St. Joseph’s Day celebrations and for the spiritually enriching homily.

Our success and steady growth as a school is partially attributed to the Very Reverend Msgr. Richard Kayondo, who steers an effective, committed, competent and devoted Board of Governors. We thank this Board for their commendable governance work, meticulous planning and monitoring as well as facilitating the implementation of the decisions they make. This propels us to work to produce stellar results.

In a special way we thank the following stakeholders for their contribution towards the success of the school: the staff, for their commitment, being team players and the winning team. The NOSA members, for their love and involvement in the activities of the school. The students, for their exemplary discipline, passion to excel, hardwork and for accepting to be formed in an integral manner. Our parents, for the support they give to us through prompt payment of school fees and the general goodwill besides the positive attitude toward the school. We are grateful to all of you for sparing your precious time to attend our Patron Saints Day celebrations. We equally thank all the service providers for ensuring the success of the day.

I wish you blessed celebrations. May St. Joseph, our Patron Saint intercede for us.

“Disciplined we Succeed”

“For God and My Country”

Agnes Nsubuga (Mrs.)
Headmistress