Teachers oppose curriculum review

Uganda National Teachers’ Union general secretary James Tweheyo. PHOTO BY RACHEL MABALA

Kampala- Teachers are opposed to government’s plan of reviewing the secondary school curriculum but want the way the current one is delivered changed.
The Uganda National Teachers’ Union (Unatu) general secretary, Mr James Tweheyo, during an interview with Daily Monitor yesterday, said for a long time despite being under facilitated amidst increasing number of students in their various institutions of learning, teachers are continuously blamed for failures.
Mr Tweheyo said many teachers have now resorted to teaching in more than one school which affects their performance.
According to Unatu statistics, about 80,000 teachers are needed with secondary alone lacking 20,000 teachers. The union estimates that by 2020 the need, if not solved now, will escalate to 180,000 teachers on demand.
“What we are teaching is relevant but how it is delivered is the problem. Even if they changed the curriculum today, tomorrow for as long as its delivery doesnot change, we will never achieve. There are principles that will never change. The past tense of is will remain was. The issue is how it is delivered which is determined by the training we get,” Mr Tweheyo said. He added: “They are just giving people money to eat through projects. Give us sufficient training. Give us timely pay, deploy sufficiently and supervise us. We have shortage of teachers. The available few are put on pressure to deliver. The teachers have no time because they are the same teaching in Kisubi, Namilyango, Seeta, Naalya. They will not have time to attend to students and teach them the way they should be taught.”

Outdated
However, Ms Grace Baguma, the National Curriculum Development Centre executive director (NCDC), believes that since information changes, it should be reviewed after every five years in order to update the masses on new developments.
“They are speaking out of ignorance. No country doesn’t have a curriculum review. There is no knowledge which doesn’t change. Information should be revised periodically. We are pushing for a curriculum policy so that we can review the curriculum after every five years,” she said while speaking to Daily Monitor yesterday.

Recruitment
Although Mr Sam Kuloba, the Ministry of Education commissioner in charge of secondary education, acknowledges that they donot have enough teachers, he is noncommittal to when the government will recruit. Mr Kuloba said their biggest challenge is in the sciences and that as soon as resources are available, two thirds of the recruited teachers will be for sciences.

Last year, President Museveni ordered that implementation of the revised curriculum, which started about eight years ago, be halted until 2020 when the country is prepared enough for the change and has the money to retool teachers and print the required textbooks. NCDC had planned to rollout the revised curriculum this year.

The report
A report titled ‘Textbooks pave the way to sustainable development’ by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) listed Uganda among countries using out of date secondary school textbooks that misrepresent key priorities in achieving sustainable development goals.
The report cited that many students are being fed on information that doesn’t meet the current global needs, including human rights, gender equality, environmental concern and global citizenship.
Uganda has never reviewed its secondary curriculum since inception.
As the President directed, Ms Baguma said yesterday that they are in advanced stages to finalise reviewing the curriculum with support from universities.