Dr Itula's return for change

On Thursday, 12 January, a very special guest, Dr Panduleni Itula, came to visit Augustineum Secondary School to motivate learners and tell them about the importance of education. This came after the school’s grades 10, 11 and 12 experienced a high failure rate in the previous year.

“I believe the speech was brilliant and very inspiring. The section where he narrated his story to us was my favourite," learner Hendrina Niitembu said. She added that she believes the rate of failure will greatly decrease hereafter, as learners were given a different perspective altogether - that attending school regularly pays off in the future.

It was a meaningful speech that positively impacted the learners and touched teachers' hearts. "Although I strongly doubt Dr Itula's speech will make students start studying right away, I am hopeful that they will, eventually, after everything finally sinks in," one of the teachers, Mr I. Kalola, said. He also advised learners to focus and make education their priority so that they can pass with good grades.

Principal Rudolf Matengu said: "As the school's patron, Dr Itula called me and informed me that he wanted to visit our school after seeing a poor performance by the grades 10, 11 and 12. He has the right as our school's patron to motivate our learners, and get our school sponsorships and fund donors."

He also indicated that he was very glad that this motivational speech was given to the learners. “Dr Itula was a former learner at the school, a dentist by profession, and has many qualifications. I hope the learners will at least be motivated to be like him, and study hard to decrease the failure rate,” he said.