For many a student in the 1990s the name PROF ERIABU LUGUJJO came with a mix of pride and fear. Apart from being a a senior lecturer at Makerere, he was the authority on Physics and Mathematics. Moses Talemwa talked to him and found a man born to be a teacher.
A conversation with him is not complete without him reminding you of his humble start in life at Katosi, on the shores of Lake Victoria back in 1944.
“I was born in a banana plantation around June 1944 … I don’t have a formal certificate from a hospital, but they showed me the banana stem, where my mother delivered from,” he says, in that matter-of-fact way.
Lugujjo was the second of three children born to his mother, who at the time was married to a catechist, Stanley Mukiibi. In those heady days, not many people could read or write, except for Mukiibi, who had been educated up to primary four.
“He was the only one who could read newspapers for the locals; it was a gamble to the villagers at that time,” Lugujjo recalls.
Apart from this, Mukiibi stood out from the locals, who were largely fishermen, whereas he preferred coffee and cotton growing.
“Maybe he thought that farming would be lucrative because he had a lot of land,” Lugujjo said.
Of his siblings, there was an older brother and later a sister. “On the third occasion she delivered twins but one died, then my mother bled to death. So, she left us very young,” he adds. Lugujjo has a lot to thank for his grandmother, who took over from his mother.
She was the one who made sure the young Lugujjo would start school at Nsanja primary school in 1951.
“Nsanja primary school had two classes. So, whoever went there stopped in class two. After P2, my father decided to take me to Ntenjeru Public School, which was private and owned by an Asian. And this Asian was an owner of a tea estate there,”
Only Lugujjo and another pupil made it past P2 from Nsanja.
“I remember we were sitting on logs and the blackboard was always put down on the floor. But because we were short, there was no inconvenience and we could take food there.”
He sat for his primary six there (which was the last class in primary school then) in 1957. It seemed at the time, that after school, Lugujjo would join his father and older brother in business, but fate had other ideas.
“A young man called Paul Kiggundu came from the city to teach us Mathematics, Science and English during his vacation, as he waited for his Cambridge exams results,” Lugujjo recalls.
He spotted two of us [out of a class of 100] and helped us register for the government exams.”
The idea was that once the two passed, it would open up opportunities for them to proceed to secondary school. Lugujjo did not disappoint, and passed highly enough to be admitted to Makerere College School in 1961. To this day, Lugujjo makes an effort to send the now elderly Kiggundu some money for his upkeep.
By this time, many of his contemporaries in Katosi had since dropped out of school, but his grandmother made sure Lugujjo would continue with school.
“She had a very strong Catholic upbringing. She realized that my elder brother was reckless a bit and then my sister was also was not making it; so, she protected me,” she says.
Coupled with this Lugujjo developed a healthy love for reading.
“She used to give me money to send the Matalisi [person who picks up letters] to Mukono to buy me some books. I loved some like the Oxford English Course and King Solomon’s Mines.”
Coming to Kampala often meant that Lugujjo, who had now inherited his father’s bicycle, commuted from Luzira to school. The head teacher at Makerere College School was the late Canon John Bikangaga who would help see him through school.
“John Bikangaga gave me the inspiration. He said he saw a lot of potential in me. He was very religious and he was the only African teacher at the school,” Lugujjo recalls, before admitting he was overwhelmed by his surroundings. “I was barefooted … I think I spent about a term not understanding what was exactly going on.”
However, the school had a saving grace. Located next to the compound was what would evolve into the College of Education and External Studies, training teachers, who would demonstrate their abilities in his school.
“They made us understand what was going on; so, we were able to follow the studies better,” he recalls.
And to this day, Lugujjo still has his classroom notes, which show that he was an ace student. Indeed in one Mathematics paper, which features simultaneous equations, Lugujjo scored 94 per cent.
JOINS UNIVERSITY
Lugujjo would later pass his exams and join Makerere for a bachelor’s degree in science, which he scored in 1970.
“We were very mature people by then; so, it as imperative to succeed,” he recalls. “However, even then I was not sure of what I wanted to be, although I loved teaching.”
Lugujjo had had a brief stint as a teacher at Nsanja after his time at Makerere College School. Life at Makerere (he was a resident of Livingstone hall) was marked by a lot of laboratory experiments and reading, even when others went out socializing.
“I just felt the need to succeed.”
After graduation, he would secure a scholarship to study for a Master of Science degree at California Institute of Technology. He obtained that degree in 1973 and stayed on for a PhD in Electrical Engineering, before returning to Makerere to lecture in 1978.
“It was a tough time … there were no lecturers, as many had fled into exile; so, we simply drafted in,” he says. He quickly rose through the ranks to become dean of the faculty of technology by 1984.
“When Museveni was in the bush, we were also fighting on this side,” he says. “But one of the problems I realized was that there were very few students coming to the faculty of technology. We realized later that very few were able to pass Physics and Mathematics.”
That is how he started teaching many a secondary school student in the holidays at Makerere College School.
“We made our contribution getting more students into the university that way,” he explains.
Together with Prof John Ddumba-Ssentamu and John Sebuwufu, they were a crop of lecturers determined to increase on the number of students qualifying for university admission.
LIFE AFTER MAKERERE
While the effort paid off, Lugujjo developed his expertise, supporting the vocational component of the Prof Senteza Kajubi report that sought to improve the education sector. Later, he would develop the Skilling Uganda framework, which he believes will one day make it possible for students with vocational skills to obtain formal qualifications, among others.
Four years ago, he left Makerere University to become vice chancellor at Ndejje University.
“I actually didn’t apply for a job. It is the bishops who sent an emissary to my office in Makerere and they said there is an offer,” he recalls.
Prof Lugujjo believes Ndejje University is growing progressively and will soon realize a world-class standing.
“We want to first nurture the individual holistically … we have some Germans now in our renewable energy [department] and [in my time], I want to emphasize five functions: teaching, training, research, community engagement and innovation.”
But he thinks all this will become possible if the state supports chartered private universities more.
Asked how he relaxes, Lugujjo says he usually works out, with some light running or walking. As for the future, he does not see himself outside the classroom. “Once a teacher, always a teacher.”
mtalemwa@observer.ug
