Background of the school

Dara Christian High School was a project conceived and funded by Mr. David Geoffrey Opio Okello and Mrs. Rachel Isweka Opio Okello in the late nineties with fields of life as its major sponsor.

Fields of Life
Fields of Life(FOL) is an NGO based in Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom which set up operations in Uganda in the early nineties with an overarching vision of establishing Schools and other Educational Institutions in East Africa to address the educational needs of the mostly disadvantaged children in war ravaged areas. Its sponsorship came mostly in form of infrastructure such as school buildings, furniture and computing equipment as well as providing tuition(full or halfway). Their support helped the founders to commence operations earlier than would have been the case. The founders would therefore wish to appreciate their contributions most profoundly.

This was a result of their concern on the deteriorating educational standards in Lango sub-region of the country for close to three decades. This school was licensed and subsequently registered as fully mixed boarding secondary school in 2003 and 2004 respectively by the ministry of Education and sports.

Regarding the academic performance, the school has steadily continued to improve its performance from a national perspective, while in its first set of UNEB exams; the school was graded among the best 25% of all the schools in the country. This position has since improved to about 10% as of 2017 performance results. Regionally, the school already demonstrated that it can compete very effectively with the older established government supported schools in the north of the country.

Purpose of starting the school

The School was built at a time of political upheavels in which the Government of the day was fighting rebellion in the North of the Country which had resulted into thousands of displaced citizens being kept in Internally displaced Camps with hundreds of school going age children unable to go to school. Some of these people had lived Camp life for over ten years. One result of this was systemic dependence on handouts for basic life needs such as food clothing etc. In a situation such as this merely providing a typical Curricullum study would not be adequate to change the mind set of the learners to transit to a productive life style involving work and deliberate effort to change their status. More therefore needed to be done.

In the mindset of the founders, they had the conviction that it was through a combination of solid Christian programs and a conducive educational environment could they cope to contribute in influencing the young minds towards better, qualitative and more responsible future citizenship. Hence, from very humble beginnings, the school now has a vibrant church with regular visiting pastor; outreach programs and intensive weekly programs of prayer and devotion led by a committed high level church committee.

Finally, there has been a remarkable progress in extracurricular activities including various aspects of games and sports; dance and drama and a variety of very active clubs.

There is no doubt that the school has now reached a level of take-off and God willing, with the commitment of the staffs, administration, the B.O.G and parents, it should not take very long to achieve and maintain its vision of being a leading and preferred school in East African sub-region.