Leading with love: Birungi’s legacy

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OPINION

By Dr Opiyo Oloya

Dear Alice Mary Birungi Baruga, among many other worthy teacher candidates honoured last week at State House, congratulations on being named the 2025 Teachers Making a Difference Overall Winner. The accolades you received from the First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Museveni, speak loudly of your dedication to leading change at Bombo Army Secondary School, resulting in academic excellence, innovation and creativity.

Alice Mary Birungi Baruga with the First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Museveni.

From this far away in Canada, your successes shine like a lighthouse guiding other educators on how to truly make a difference in the lives of young learners. Established in 1997, your school has grown significantly over the years and now accommodates thousands of students. Under your leadership, the school emphasises discipline, patriotism, integrity, innovation and academic excellence. As an inclusive institution, you welcome children of soldiers, including those who have lost parents in service and of civilians alike.

What particularly makes yours such an inspiring story is your determination to keep learning and sharpen your leadership skills. You went back into the classroom and year by year are improving your knowledge, until you attained the goals you set for yourself. You are proof that life-long learning is one of the five most valuable qualities setting apart excellent teachers from run-of-the-mill teachers. While anyone can be a teacher, great teachers also demonstrate love for students, inspire love of learning, insist on excellence and nurture love of community.

Reflecting on my own years in the classroom and educational leadership in Canada, having had the privilege of teaching children as young as four years old and those completing their PhDs, love of students is not just a phrase; it is integral to the art of teaching itself. Regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or gender of the learner, students learn best when they know their teacher cares deeply about them. Teachers who bark may scare students, but to inspire the love of learning are teachers who work hardest in loving the children they teach — every one of them.

When I was the new principal at a large suburban Catholic school north of Toronto, serving diverse student population, including Black, Asian, White and Middle Eastern students, I regularly met with parents concerned about the education of their children. One day, a Black mother marched into my office to demand that I remove her child from the current classroom because the White teacher was discriminating against her child. When I asked how this was happening, she explained that the teacher regularly detained her child during recess to go over Math concepts that her child had not grasped. According to her, this was not fair.

I explained to the parent that it was within my authority to transfer her child to another class, but before I did that, I wanted her to consider something else. This teacher was one of the best in my school. The teacher chose to spend her own free time supporting the child, not because she hated the child, but because she cared so much for the child. For the teacher, the child was worth the extra attention and dedication. “So if you still want me to transfer your child to another classroom, I can do it right now, what is it going to be?” I asked her. She thought for a moment and decided her child was better off in the same class. And her child thrived and achieved better grades. At the end of the school year, the parent returned with a beautifully wrapped gift for the teacher to thank her.

Reading about your work at Bombo Army Secondary where students are challenged to be their very best, I am reminded that the best teachers are also role models. Thanks to the role models throughout my education in Uganda, I am who I am today. These heroes helped shape the future me.

Filda Oloya (not related to me), my Primary One teacher in Gulu Primary School. The no-nonsense Primary Seven teacher Kaleto Otika at Pamin-Yai Primary School. My history teacher Kerubino Uma, the Literature in English teacher, Abujere at Sir Samuel Baker Secondary School and Dan Hyuha, who inspired me to excel in A’level history and Literature in English at St. Peter’s College, Tororo. They were excellent teachers who were always well prepared, ready to teach and very particular in providing me with the feedback I needed to soar as a learner.

This is why the work you are doing is so important — not only are you preparing candidates who will do well on the examinations, but also young people who will become citizens playing vital roles in society. You are a reminder to all teachers of why they do what they do, teach future astronauts, members of parliaments, doctors, lawyers, teachers, architects, engineers, designers and scientists.

I celebrate you and the many teachers throughout Uganda who get up daily in front of young people to guide, lead, teach and shape them into future citizens. Your work is noble, and it is beautiful that it is recognised nationally. I look forward to visiting your school in the summer in July and August to interact with you, your teachers and students, and to learn from you.

The writer is the inaugural associate vice-president of equity, diversity and inclusion at Western University, London, Ontario, Canada Opiyo.oloya@gmail.com Twitter: @Opiyooloya