When British novelist William Golding wrote his 1954 classic Lord of the Flies, a twelve-chapter allegorical novel rendered in third person narrative and running between 208 and 224 pages in the standard Faber and Faber edition, he may not have imagined that seventy years later his island would find a modern address. A rented Airbnb apartment in Ugandan towns.
Yet that is exactly what is happening.
In Golding’s novel, a group of well-bred British schoolboys from good families and good schools survive a plane crash and find themselves stranded on a beautiful tropical island.
There is no adult, no teacher, no parent. At first it looks like paradise, freedom, fun, no rules endless vibes.
They attempt order, electing Ralph to keep the signal fire burning. But Jack appeals to baser instincts. Hunting, meat and power. Instant gratification. Slowly the choirboys become hunters. The conch that symbolized order is shattered. Innocence is slaughtered. Paradise becomes hell. Golding’s lesson endures.
Character without boundaries collapses. It is that same island children enter today when they walk into unsupervised house parties.
That is the warning issued by Denis Alfred Anguyo, the Principal of Viva College School, one of the best high schools in the country, with more than 3,000 students and over 200 teaching and support staff under his stewardship.
Anguyo is a man described by many not in ordinary terms but as a measured, deeply reflective and intellectually grounded educationist who operates from what insiders call the Think Tank and Brain Trust of Viva College.
The high-octane Academic Kitchen and intellectual production laboratory where curricula are refined, discipline is reengineered and great minds are shaped for the world.
Those who have worked with him say his administrative and management menu is not cosmetic but academically rich, intellectually robust and operationally sumptuous. The opposite of those who table flowery CVs but are practically hollow in delivery and thin in substance. He does not edify himself. His work does.
He spoke on Tuesday afternoon from his College office, calm but unmistakably firm, choosing his words with the precision of a man who has led a large institution long enough to know that small compromises become big scandals.
Throughout the interview with The Exposure Uganda (TEU)journalist, his demeanor was composed, fatherly and deliberate. Pausing often, maintaining eye contact, and occasionally leaning forward to stress a point that mattered more than the rest. As is his trademark he was impeccably dressed in a suit.
Those close to him know his distinct style. He is always in suits, with a high affinity for grey and deep blue suits, crisply matched with polished shoes and well knotted ties. A quiet statement of order, dignity and seriousness in a generation that often confuses casualness with modernity.
According to Anguyo, a dangerous illusion is growing among well-meaning parents that paying fees in powerful schools and yielding to every financial and social demand so that a son or daughter feels cool makes a parent appear modern and responsible.
Provision is not parenting, he said, adding that money without mentorship creates children who are financially rich but morally bankrupt.
What is presented to parents as just a birthday, a small get together or a class celebration is often held in private spaces that offer the same dangerous privacy as Golding’s island. No responsible adult, no structure and no accountability.
Once you drop your child at an Airbnb without establishing who is in charge, what is planned and who else will be present, you have left him on an island. And like in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the island will teach him its own lessons, and those lessons are brutal.
Those lessons, he cautions, include peer pressure and premature experimentation, exposure to alcohol, vaping and illicit substances, sexual experimentation, bullying and exploitation, the recording and circulation of compromising images, cyberbullying and online blackmail, association with older unknown individuals, theft, property damage and emotional manipulation.
The tragedy, he says with a slight shake of the head, is that children rarely see the danger. They see the price of belonging. The phrase everybody is going becomes louder than parental counsel.
From Warning to Witness: What Has Already Gone Wrong.
Denis Alfred Anguyo is not speaking in parables or in tongues as some men and women of God want us to believe. The record already shows what happens when the island is left ungoverned.
In Kisaasi, a school party itself became the source of conflict. The Ministry of Education opened inquiries after Kisaasi College suspended students for boycotting a school organized party, with parents asked to pay Shs 100,000 for their return. For many families it raised a troubling question. When attendance at a party becomes compulsory, where is consent and where is safety?
Farther north the night has turned deadly. In Gulu police arrested four students for allegedly murdering a 29-year-old man after returning from a disco during Independence celebrations. The body was retrieved by the roadside between Gulu Army Secondary School and St Jude Orphanage Primary.
In a separate incident in Amolatar this May, Kenneth Odon, a Senior One student of Kangai Secondary School, was stabbed to death at 2 a.m. during a fight at a disco, barely a day after returning home for holidays. His friend was left seriously injured. Both were stories of music, darkness, no adult supervision and a dispute that escalated.
In Uganda’s capital where we should expect the best, the same pattern repeats in crowded fun places. Detectives at Kabalagala Police Station identified a student who was killed by thugs at Wonderworld Amusement Park in Kansanga at about 2 a.m. during a music concert. He was attacked and robbed in the very crowd that was supposed to be celebrating the holiday.
And in Nansana the illusion of just a small get together was exposed. Acting on noise complaints, Lubigi Police raided a house in Kibulooka, Nansana West Ward, and found 54 students in possession of khat, Shisha, alcohol and other drugs.
The Head Teacher of Old Kampala Secondary School, Williams Ssuuna, later clarified that his school had organized an official promotion party for candidates, but some students had organized their own secret after party elsewhere.
The signature is the same, says Anguyo. A private space, a night event. The promise of belonging. No responsible adult truly in charge. It is for this reason that he insists his appeal is not moralism but safeguarding.
He says character rarely breaks in one dramatic event. It erodes through small compromises repeated until abnormal behavior feels normal. Many parents become vigilant only after the damage is done. After a video circulates, a child returns home intoxicated, or a disciplinary crisis land on the school’s desk.
Drawing from the African adage that it takes a village to raise a child, the Principal says schools alone cannot carry the moral burden.
A school may spend hours teaching discipline, integrity and respect, but those lessons are weakened if weekends celebrate opposite values.
Parents and schools must speak with one voice, he said, urging families to know their children’s friends by name, to understand their social circles, and to ask the difficult but necessary questions. Who is hosting? Who is supervising? Who else is coming? What time will you be back? May I speak to the parent in charge?
He also calls for better alternatives. Sports, supervised family gatherings, community service, school clubs, faith-based activities and open homes where friends are welcome under watchful eyes, and above all homes where children can tell the truth without fear.
This, he says, is the foundation upon which Viva College stands, and it is unapologetic about it. Discipline at Viva is treated as culture, not punishment. Time keeping, decent language, respect for authority and property are cultivated as habits of future leaders.
Academic work is pursued with rigor. The school operates as a think tank and intellectual production laboratory where minds are shaped to understand, to reason, to create and to compete globally, with emphasis on robust delivery rather than flowery credentials.
At the heart of its ethos, Anguyo says Viva believes everyone, including every child or learner, is a child of God.
The school therefore upholds freedom of faith, choice and worship without segregation or discrimination. Muslim, Christian and children of all faiths learn, pray and grow together with equal dignity. What the school insists on is reverence for God and a life guided by godly values of integrity, honesty, purity and service.
In the same spirit, he adds, respect for human dignity is non-negotiable. Bullying, arrogance of wealth and vulgarity have no place. Hard work is honored over hype, leadership is taught through service, and the partnership between parent and school is treated as essential.
Parents who undermine school values, however rich or powerful, are counselled without apology. Above all, child protection and safety come first, because character does not go on holiday.
It does not matter whether the boy or girl flies to the party venue in a hired chopper or in the latest limousine, Anguyo says, his voice dropping slightly for emphasis.
A chopper cannot lift a child above poor character, and a limousine cannot drive a child away from a poor decision. What matters is not how they arrived, but what they found, what they did, and who they became while inside that closed door.
The world does not need more children who know how to enter an Airbnb, he says but rather it needs children who know how to exit a wrong room. Golding’s boys failed because when the conch broke, no one had taught them how to listen anymore.
Do Not Let Your Child’s Conch Break.
Viva College will continue to be what many describe as its Brain Trust and Academic Kitchen, but no kitchen, however rich and sumptuous its menu, can feed a child who is being poisoned elsewhere.
He says history will not ask parents how much fees they paid, but what values survived after the fees were paid.
A party lasts a few hours, a video lasts forever on the internet, but character, once carefully built, becomes the only bodyguard your child carries into adulthood. Let us not wait for the house party to become a house of regret.
