By Maxine Kampire

Derrick Sibo, one of St. Henry’s College Kitovu’s top performers, right away wanted to become a petroleum engineer after noticing the acute shortage of professionals in Uganda’s emerging petroleum industry.

“I want to be an oil engineer because Uganda recently discovered it and there is good money. Plus I do not want the government to hire engineers from abroad,” an excited Sibo explained.

Aggregate 12-in-eight in the just released Uganda Certificate Education (UCE) Examinations results came as a shock to the 17-year-old and his mother.

Having emerged the 11th overall in his school, he is happy and ‘delighted’ with his results. He says that he has been inspired to become an oil engineer by the discovery of oil in Uganda.

Sibo scored aggregate29 in his Mock exams, which must have been the source of his shock over the final exams’ results.

“I was so happy. I used to perform well in exams but in Mock, I did badly and this lowered my expectations of what I would and could get in UNEB,” said Sibo.

He had to change subjects from Additional Mathematics to Technical Drawing in his final year.

“My Maths teacher told my mother and I that Additional Maths would not be in the exams. My mother forced me to do Technical drawing.”

The change affected his marks because he would perform dismally in Technical Drawing. However, he excelled in Division Two in UCE.

His excited mother, Dinah Businge, said she was happy with the change of subjects and thanked God for her son’s results.

“In the end he did well and I am proud of him. I thank God who took him from aggregate 29 to 12,” she said.

Sibo has his eyes set on Uganda Martyrs SSS, Namugongo and wants to study Physics, Chemistry, Maths and IT.