Africa-Press – Uganda. As the 2020 Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) candidates were sitting for their final examinations, it was not the same arrangement for the 18-year old Muhammad Iddi, who sat for the same at Uganda Cancer Institute.
Iddi was battling cancer of low grade tissue sarcoma, and at the time of the exams, he was undergoing chemotherapy, a treatment that kills cancer cells.
Despite sitting his exams in the hospital set up, he scored the maximum points of 20.
He did Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, subjects where he posted triple A and obtained subsidiary passes in Computer Studies and General Paper.
He was diagnosed with cancer in 2019 while he was Senior Five at Kigumba Intensive Secondary School in Kiryandongo District.
By the time the exams were conducted between April 12 and May 3 this year, he was undergoing chemotherapy.
“My school made arrangements with the hospital and I was able to sit for my final exams while at the cancer institute,” Iddi told Daily Monitor on Monday.
He added: “The head teacher would travel from Kiryandongo to bring my set of final exams to the hospital. He was accompanied by two invigilators who would supervise the exams and one police officer who would oversee the entire exercise.”
Given the circumstances surrounding the sitting of his exams, Iddi was allowed an extra 45 minutes to complete each paper.
He was also allocated a convenient room within the institute where to sit the exams.
“I wrote some of my papers only a few days after undergoing chemotherapy and the side effects of the treatment were still heavy, for instance feeling extremely weak and nauseous. Imagine feeling all these things, yet, I had to sit papers. It was tough,” he recalls.
Despite the health challenges, Iddi said he was determined to excel.
“I don’t come from a financially well-off family, so I kept telling myself that if I do not excel in these exams, I would then be doing a disservice to my family,” he recalls.
Iddi, the only child from his parents, was raised by his maternal grandmother, who stays in Masindi Port, a sub county in Kiryandongo.
This was after losing his father at the age of six. His mother, Ms Fatuma Chandia Rashid, remarried.
Iddi sat for his Senior Four exams in 2018 at Masindi Port Secondary School, in Kiryandongo in 2018 and scored Aggregate 30. He completed his Primary seven in 2014 at Masindi Port Primary School where he scored Aggregate 11.
