BROTHER (DR) COSMAS KIWANUKA KAFEERO GIVEN A HERO’S SEND OFF

 

At 1.00 pm, 27th February, 2014, the last journey of the Late Brother (Dr) Cosmas Kiwanuka Kafeero started.  The Requiem Mass was in the Brothers’ Chapel.  The main Celebrant was Msg. Kasibante who stood in for the Archbishop Cyprian Kizito Lwanga who was unable to attend given the prior commitments.

Among the big figures that attended were His Excellence the Vice President of Uganda Hon. Ssekandi; the representative of the Katikkiro of Buganda (Owek. Nuwa Nnyanzi); Hon. Matia Kasaija State Minister of Planning; Owek. Walusimbi former Katikkiro of Buganda and Chairman SMACK Board; the SMACK Old Boys’ Association Executive Members; Hon. Baguma Isoke of the Land Board to mention but a few.

Hon. Matia Kasaija who was called to speak by  Owek. Nuwa nyanzi who stood in for Katikkiro.  He was called to eventually call the Vice President Hon. Ssekandi.  It so happened that Hon. Kasaija had not been on the list of those to speak.  he however took the opportunity to tell mourners that he had been closely associated with Brother Kafeero from O' level, and fortunately, given that he had pledged to assist the Brother in his sickness, he had tried and this was after the information/updates he was getting from Annet Nassali and William Kituuka.  The Minister also read the Vice President's message given that the Vice president's voice was not okay at the time.  

In his condolence message read after the Requiem Mass for Brother (Dr) Cosmas Kiwanuka Kafeero, Prof. Ddumba Sentamu, the Vice Chancellor Makerere University express sadness at the passing on of a great lecturer who had served the University with all dedication when he was lecturer in Botany.  It so happens that Prof. Sentamu is an Old Boy of St. Mary’s College Kisubi and was a student there while Brother Kafeero was a Biology teacher.  The University made a cash contribution of Shs 1,000,000 towards the burial expenses.

The representative of Brother Kafeero family told the mourners that Brother Kafeero had all the time wanted to know more, hence the reason he was able to read for a Doctorate degree.  He had worked hard to see many of his relatives get education, this meant that he had to work in a number of schools to realize the objective.

One relative (sister) of Brother Kafeero told the editor of this article that while he was Headmaster of St. Mary’s College Kisubi (1980 – 1983), some well positioned person approached him with a lot of money to secure a place for his son.  Kafeero told the parent that given the poor passes of the boy, he could not admit the boy.  At the climax of the developments, Kafeero had his life at risk and he devised a way of escape.  The parent forcefully put his son into the dormitory.  However, the other students mistreated the boy when they poured water on the boy’s bed as well as ate his eats.  The boy ended up giving up and left the school.

Hon. Ssekandi seen with Hon. Kasaija on leaving the Chapel to the burial ground.

 

The body of the Late Brother (Dr) Cosmas Kiwanuka Kafeero on its last journey to the Brothers' Cemetery where it was laid to minutes after.

 Brothers of Christian Instruction holding the body of Brother Cosmas Kafeero

No body among the mourners showed so much grief on the loss of Brother Kafeero as his carer Annet Nassali (seen with green).  The little Brother Kafeero has been getting to sustain him, he has been sparing some of it to help support Nassali who is a single parent.

Relatives of Brother Kafeero carrying the wreaths

 

 Students of St. Mary's College Kisubi who attended the burial

The Choir can be seen

 

Brother Kafeero's body at its final resting place

Brother Kyemwa was not himself after the burial of the man who has been his neighbour at their residence.  He is seen having a snack after the burial.

BROTHER (DR) COSMAS KIWANUKA KAFEERO'S BODY ON THE JOURNEY TO FINAL RESTING PLACE

LOOKS LIKE BROTHER COSMAS KAFEERO'S TIME HAS COME

I called at the Uganda Cancer Institute at 12.30 pm.  What I saw was Brother Kafeero on Oxygen, but looked like he had started getting cold!
The wailing by Annet Nassali who has for 5 years cared for the Brother as well as the Brother's relatives was testimony that all hope had gone.

Brother Kafeero has fought the good fight.  he has kept the faith - 2 Timothy 4:7
Sorry for the photo, but that is it.

William Kituuka

CONCERN ABOUT THE LENGTH OF 1st TERM FOR THOSE JOINING SECONDARY FIVE

17^th March 2014 is the official reporting date for children joining secondary five.  What is unfortunate is that the schools demand so much money yet when the children’s stay is so short-lived.  Some intervention is needed here.

William Kituuka

UCE: Overall performance declines

(L-R) Uneb Secretary General Mathew Bukenya, Uneb chairman Fagil Mandy and Education minister Jessica Alupo during the release of UCE results in Kampala yesterday. PHOTO BY FAISWAL KASIRYE.  

By PATIENCE AHIMBISIBWE

Posted  Wednesday, February 26  2014 at  02:00

In Summary

Performance dropped from 94.1 per cent in 2012 to 91.2 per cent in 2013. This represents a 2.9 per cent decline.

The Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) has reported a slight drop in performance in last year’s Senior Four results.

Mr Mathew Bukenya, the Uneb executive secretary, yesterday said the overall performance dropped from 94.1 per cent in 2012 to 91.2 per cent in 2013. This represents a 2.9 percentage points decline in performance.

According to Mr Bukenya, more than 50 per cent of the candidates were unable to demonstrate the basic competencies, with Chemistry being the most worrying. He also recorded a drop in performance in Geography, Agriculture and Physics. “Performance levels in the core science subjects still remain very poor. Chemistry is the most worrying subject where candidates couldn’t demonstrate basic competencies,” Mr Bukenya noted.

For instance, Agriculture, Physics, Chemistry and Biology subjects each had less than 1 per cent of their candidates score a distinction. Out of the 289,012 students who appeared for the exams, 129,853 were under government’s free education introduced in 2007. Absenteeism increased by 0.1 percentage points as compared to 2012.

Results of 1,800 students were withheld after the examining body suspected them to have been involved in examination malpractice. Mr Bukenya reported that most of the cases were identified during marking of the student scripts and can only be released after investigations.

Education minister Jessica Alupo directed that Uneb withdraws centres of schools which have consistently been involved in malpractice. She encouraged the 17.6 per cent of the students who scored division nine to repeat Senior Four so that they can at least acquire the needed competencies to use in life after school.

Although the government insists on compulsory science at ordinary secondary level, the performance in the subjects has continued to be poor. 

Overall performance levels improved in Christian Religious Education, Islamic Religious Education, History and Biology. Mathematics and English improved at the upper grades. Female students performed better than males in English language and Literature in English, while the male candidates performed better in other subjects. However, the boys’ overall performance was better than that of the girls.

There is consistent poor performance in the construction of graphs, solving of simultaneous equations, skills of geometrical construction, vectors, the set theory, fraction expressions and consumptions of compound interests.

Some candidates continued to find problems in handling of apparatus during the practical tests as well as recording observations and drawing conclusions. “There were difficulties with questions requiring explanations, description of experimental procedure, use of chemical symbols and formulae, writing of units and dealing with tasks that require practical experience,” Mr Bukenya explained.

Candidates had difficulty in understanding the meaning of essential words used in questions, leading to presentation of irrelevant answers. There was inability to draw meaning from passages and make summaries.

Mr Bukenya pointed the finger at teachers who encourage their students to cram passages from English language texts which are then reproduced irrelevantly when answering English composition questions.

“Answers to questions requiring explanations or descriptions suffer from the language deficiency. There is evidence that the use of prescribed text books in teaching is being avoided by many teachers in preference to pamphlets,” Mr Bukenya said.

At least all the 34 inmates at Luzira Prisons who sat the exams passed. The two-day Senior Five selection is expected to start on March 6 pending their beginning of first term on March17.

THE GRADES

According to Uneb standards, candidates in Divisions 1 and 2 demonstrated high levels of knowledge and skills in subjects they took, Division 3 represent those who were moderate in competence where they are able to demonstrate knowledge but are not able to deal with the higher order level skills while Division 4 have minimum competence. Here, they showed the ability to understand elementary concepts and skills only. Those who were awarded Division 9 have not achieved the basic level of competency required to be graded. As many as 25,229 students were in this category.

pahimbisibwe@ug.nationmedia.com

President Museveni's full speech at signing of Anti-Homosexuality bill

President Museveni signs the Anti-Homosexuality bill into law shortly before delivering his speech in which he lashed out at the Western countries. Photo by William Rujuta 

By Monitor Online

Posted  Monday, February 24  2014 at  17:29

In Summary

He then went ahead to stress that Uganda is a rich country that does not need aid, because aid is in itself a problem. This all happened this afternoon at state house Entebbe. Read the full address of the President below

3
iPresident Museveni today assented to the anti-homosexuality bill, making it a law amidst debate and controversies from Western powers and Human rights activists. The President stressed that despite US president barrack Obama getting disappointed with the signing of this bill, We (Ugandans) have also been disappointed for a very long time too by the policies of the west that do not make us "happy".

He then went ahead to stress that Uganda is a rich country that does not need aid, because aid is in itself a problem. This all happened this afternoon at state house Entebbe. Read the full address of the President below:

It seems the topic of homosexuals was provoked by the arrogant and careless Western groups that are fond of coming into our schools and recruiting young children into homosexuality and lesbianism, just as they carelessly handle other issues concerning Africa.

Initially, I did not pay much attention to it because I was busy with the immediate issues of defense, security, electricity, the roads, the railways, factories, modernization of agriculture, etc.

When, eventually, I concentrated my mind on it, I distilled three problems:
1. those who were promoting homo-sexuality and recruiting normal people into it;
2. as a consequence of No. 1 above, many of those recruited were doing so for mercenary reasons – to get money – in effect homosexual prostitutes; these mercenary homosexual prostitutes had to be punished;
3. Homosexuals exhibiting themselves; Africans are flabbergasted by exhibitionism of sexual acts – whether heterosexual or otherwise and for good reason. Why do you exhibit your sexual conduct? Are you short of opportunity for privacy - where you can kiss, fondle (kukirigiita, kwagaaga) etc.?

Are we interested in seeing your sexual acts – we the Public? I am not able to understand the logic of the Western Culture. However, we Africans always keep our opinions to ourselves and never seek to impose our point of view on the others. If only they could let us alone.

It was my view that the above three should be punished harshly in order to defend our society from disorientation. Therefore, on these three I was in total accord with the MPs and other Ugandans. I had, however, a problem with Category 4 or what I thought was category 4 – those “born” homosexual.

I thought there were such people – those who are either genetic or congenital homosexuals. The reason I thought so was because I could not understand why a man could fail to be attracted to the beauties of a woman and, instead, be attracted to a fellow man. It meant, according to me, that there was something wrong with that man – he was born a homosexual – abnormal.

I, therefore, thought that it would be wrong to punish somebody because of how he was created, disgusting though it may be to us. That is why I refused to sign the Bill. In order to get to the truth, we involved Uganda Scientists as well as consulting Scientists from outside Uganda.

My question to them was: “Are there people that are homosexual right from birth?”. After exhaustive studies, it has been found that homosexuality is in two categories: there are those who engage in homosexuality for mercenary reasons on account of the under – developed sectors of our economy that cause people to remain in poverty, the great opportunities that abound not withstanding; and then there are those that become homosexual by both nature (genetic) and nurture (up-bringing).

The studies that were done on identical twins in Sweden showed that 34% - 39% were homosexual on account of nature and 66% were homosexual on account of nurture.

Therefore, even in those studies, nurture was more significant than nature. Can somebody be homosexual purely by nature without nurture? The answer is: “No”. No study has shown that. Since nurture is the main cause of homosexuality, then society can do something about it to discourage the trends. That is why I have agreed to sign the Bill.

Since Western societies do not appreciate politeness, let me take this opportunity to warn our people publicly about the wrong practices indulged in and promoted by some of the outsiders.

One of them is “oral sex”. Our youth should reject this because God designed the human being most appropriately for pleasurable, sustainable and healthy sex. Some of the traditional styles are very pleasurable and healthy. The mouth is not engineered for that purpose except kissing. Besides, it is very unhealthy. People can even contract gonorrhea of the mouth and throat on account of so-called “oral sex”, not to mention worms, hepatitis E, etc.

The Ministry of Gender and Youth should de-campaign this buyayism imported from outside and sensitize the youth about the healthy life style that is abundant in our cultures.