Africa-Press – Uganda. MM College Wairaka is one of the traditional schools that was started in 1953 as a technical college, before being transferred to Kyambogo in 1958.
The school was established during the reign of Governor Andrew Cohen, purposely to give the community hands-on skill to support the growing industrial nature of Jinja.
However, the college, which was known as a bastion for disseminating knowledge on agriculture and was fully fitted with farm inputs, including a fully-fledged carpentry department, is in a sorry state with some of its structures abandoned.
Ms Hilda Namutosi, the head teacher, says the student enrollment has dropped from 1,300 to 400.
She, however, says former students have re-roofed the Physics, Chemistry and Biology laboratory in a bid to gradually restore the school’s lost glory.
This, amid structural challenges, including roofing, which is still in asbestos, some of which are either broken or leaking.
“The school has not received money from the government for the renovation although it is among the traditional schools considered in the project. All renovations done here are by the efforts of Madhvani and former students,” the head teacher said in an interview last Wednesday.
According to Ms Namutosi, the school has “plenty of land for farming” and requests for a tractor to offer practical lessons in agriculture following the introduction of a new curriculum.
She says the school has about 46 staff, with 36 of them on the government payroll, while others are paid under a private arrangement.
She, however, says some of the structures at the school have been turned into produce stores, others are being used by support staff to keep animals and birds, while the rest are rotting away.
Old students speak out
Mr Paul Isabirye Baasibe, a former student, says the government needs to support such traditional schools since some of them have been outcompeted by some of the private schools.
Mr Grace Luwetute, who was at the school between 1997 and 2000, said the college was “every parent and student’s dream”, but it is declining academically and structurally.
“It is very painful to see the dormitory I slept in for four years, with about 150 students, now turned into a poultry unit,” he said.
Mr Emmanuel Masumbuko, also an Old Boy, said one way of bringing back the school’s lost glory, is for the management to start offering scholarships and half bursaries to talented students within the community in areas of football, and athletics among other sports.
To stay afloat, the school underwent a transition from technical to farm school under the name Muljibhai Madhvani Farm School, where students obtained a certificate accredited to City Lloyds in the United Kingdom.
Later in 1970, parents demanded for a secondary school to enable their children obtain formal employment and the government took over and renamed it Muljibhai Madhvani College, Wairaka.
Mr Lameck Mulwanyi from Gulu Farm School was asked to take over as acting headmaster of the infant secondary school.
However, in 1973, the then government abolished foreign names attached to institutions, prompting the school’s Board of Governors to change it from Muljibhai Madhvani College, Wairaka to Wairaka College.
In 1982, it was upgraded to an ‘A’ level school and around that time when the Madhvani family returned to Uganda, they renamed it Muljibhai Madhvani College, Wairaka, which name stands to-date.
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