St. Charles Lwanga Secondary School Kasasa is a Catholic Founded School. It was started by the Brothers of Christian Instruction on 1st February 1955 as a Juniorate School training boys with an intention of joining Religious Life. On 3rd June 1955, it was blessed by Bishop Joseph Kiwanuka (White Father) the then Ordinary of Masaka Diocese. At this point it was named Blessed Lwanga Formation House.
In 1967, with the main block from the current S.4 A to S.2 A, the Literature room as the Head master’s office, S.6 Sc as the staffroom, two rooms at the Novitiate and Kabuusu to Lawrence dormitories, the school was turned into a Secondary School due to the needs of education at the time.
In late 1967 plans were made to relocate the Juniorate back to Kisubi. This made Kasasa a fully-fledged secondary school called St. Charles Lwanga S.S Kasasa. Effective 16th January, 1967 the O level started. Kasasa gradually rose in fame attracting quite a number of students especially those from well to do families in urban areas such as Kampala, Entebbe, Mbarara, and the neighboring countries. This called for the upgrading of the school to provide for A level section which the Ministry of Education granted in February 1982. From this point on Kasasa never looked back becoming a prestigious school of fame in all aspects of school life; Sports, Academics, Music, and rowdiness. This made it even more famous and popularly sounding all over the country.
The late 80s and 1990s saw Kasasa get to its peak in terms of numbers and academic excellence. This spurred quite a number of developments in form of buildings and constructions to accommodate the bulging numbers of students seeking vacancies in Kasasa. This is when the current administration block of S.6 A was set up. The terracotta bricks-buildings housing the Novitiate were also put up in 1990, as well as the Dulvaton Hall (Main Hall) finished in 1991.
The Vatican and Tomusange dormitories were constructed in 1993 and 1994 respectively, the Kasasa Library Extension, the unipot (Kabaati) and staff houses in 1996. The year 1997 saw the erection of St. Charles Lwanga’s statue and the installation of the Mega power generator we still have. The dream of the chapel that has never been completed emerged in 1999.
For about a decade from the year 2000, the light of the school started becoming dim as things began changing. The enrollment started declining steadily. The causes of which were attributed to a number of factors some of which were administrative in nature; divisive attitude among the staff, students’ rowdiness, poor parental involvement, negative attitude of the neighboring community towards the school, limited assistance from Old students and declining academic performance among others.
This left the founding body with a phenomenal challenge of how to overcome these huddles. One of the strategies for reviving the school was recruiting girls to boost the dwindling numbers. Although a few girls had gone through Kasasa during its heydays, the first official girl-child enrollment was in 2003. The first girls belonged to the school nurse and a few teaching staff members and were essentially day scholars. Initially there had been no planned accommodation facilities for the girl child although room for expansion was always available. Life was not fully restored yet until the Founding Body decided to call in Government Aid from the Ministry of Education in 2011. This significantly dealt with the issue of the dwindling number putting the school on its course of revival and ensured brighter days for Kasasa. Soon the girl-child numeracy became overwhelming and led to the birth of St. Padre Pio girls’ dormitory in 2013. The students’ enrollment has since shot up from 185 in 2010, 270 in 2011, and 405 in 2012, to 624 in 2013 and today it stands at 622.
The school has had 24 Brother Headmasters who have struggled to see Kasasa’s continued progress and fame amidst very challenging moments throughout its history.
Currently, its staff enrollment stands at 50 well-trained and qualified teachers, 9 non-teaching staff, and 19 support staff. A lot has happened that has made Kasasa reclaim its fame with developments such as three (3) additional blocks of classrooms, acquisition of modern transport facilities in form of a school bus.