Written By | Alex Mbamanya
Namugongo Vocational and Secondary school won boys Volleyball to become only the 3rd Uganda team to win a volleyball gold in 23 years
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Kampala
The Ugandan school teams that represented the country at the 23rd edition of the Federation of East Africa School Sports Association (FEASSA) Games in Morogoro, Tanzania, have finally returned safely after embarking on the longest journey in FEASSA competition history—a grueling 3,704 km round trip.
Many individual school representatives returned with broad smiles after securing gold, silver, and bronze medals for their outstanding performances. However, the mood was solemn for Team Uganda as a whole, having missed out on retaining the coveted overall trophy.
Uganda had previously established a masterclass of dominance in the games over the past five years, remaining unchallenged since 2019 in Arusha. However, they fell short of securing six titles in a row as perennial powerhouses Kenya went all out to reclaim their regional supremacy.
Following a contested 2025 overall championship in Kakamega, Kenya—where FEASSA ultimately ruled in favor of Uganda after Kenya declared victory using controversial tallying methods—this year’s title race in the secondary school section went down to the wire.
When the final medal tally was completed, Kenya came out on top with 20 gold, 15 silver, and 12 bronze medals. Uganda finished closely behind with 18 gold, 22 silver, and 16 bronze medals, followed by hosts Tanzania with 4 gold, 4 silver, and 9 bronze, and Rwanda with 1 gold, 1 silver, and 5 bronze.
Boni Consilii Girls won their first ever FEASSA medal and they won bronze in girls football
A closer look at Uganda’s performance reveals several factors that led to the loss. Whether Uganda comes back stronger in the next edition in Kigali, Rwanda, will depend on how the Uganda Secondary Schools Sports Association (USSSA) and the Physical Education and Sports (PES) department under the Ministry of Education and Sports address these key issues.
Weakened Disciplines
Kenya remained far stronger in specific disciplines—namely rugby, hockey, and athletics—where they swept the boys' and girls' titles, collecting 8 gold medals across these three sports alone.
In these events, Uganda continues to field under-strength teams at the FEASSA level. Schools that qualify in disciplines like rugby and hockey often fail to include senior candidates who feature at national championships, primarily using participation just to earn the 4-point academic incentive awarded by the ministry to student-athletes at the UACE level.
Furthermore, national sports federations have shown little support for USSSA scheduling. As noted by both the Uganda Athletics Federation and the Uganda Rugby Union, parallel domestic events were scheduled at the same time, preventing top school-going athletes from traveling to Morogoro.
Insufficient Official Deployment
Uganda’s deployment of sports officials remains severely lacking compared to Kenya's. Kenya frequently deploys more than three officials per discipline and dominates the officiating panels at event venues, whereas Uganda often has only one or none.
This limited deployment is caused by a lack of government financial backing. USSSA finds it impossible to accredit larger delegations given the substantial expenses involved. While the Kenyan government fully funds its school sports delegations—covering both officials and qualifying schools—the Ugandan government covers only a fraction of those costs.
This sparse representation allowed Kenya's heavy influence to prevail in technical meetings and venue officiating, which contributed to early exits for several Ugandan teams and questionable result decisions in events like Chess and Scrabble.
Travel Fatigue and Travel Delays
Long-distance travel contributed heavily to poor starts across various events, despite a two-day rest period before competition began.
The 1,850 km road journey to Morogoro was the longest the Ugandan contingent had undertaken in many years. Exhaustion from the road trip left athletes physically drained when the tournament began.
Compounding the problem, several teams were detained by police in Uganda for nearly four days over newly introduced driver documentation regulations. Those who eventually made it to Tanzania arrived with virtually no time to recover before competing.
