The new lower secondary curriculum should succeed

What you need to know:

  • By setting exams which test the kind of skills we want to develop, the analysis of given information, the ability to be creative and asking for the learner’ own ideas and opinions, we will force both teachers and learners to develop these abilities rather than just the ability to memorise knowledge.
  • In Science, we would not ask them to explain what is meant by molecular structures but to explain how molecular structures affect everyday things such as wood, paper, fibres and plastics and be able to recommend the types of materials most suitable for particular purposes. These kinds of questions test skills and the ability to think for yourself, not just memory of knowledge.

I agree with the excellent analysis by Henry Okurut of the

Why curriculum reform efforts are likely to remain largely ineffective

Above all, the unit costs of delivering a vocationally-leaning basic education curriculum were prohibitively too high owing to the concomitant need to build workshops or laboratories, install the necessary equipment, continually buy the needed tools and materials, employ specialised auxiliary staff, etc.

. However, I do not agree with his conclusion that curriculum reform is likely to remain largely ineffective.

I believe that with the right policies, and learning from our past experiences, there is a good chance that the present reforms of the lower secondary curriculum, due to be implemented in 2018, can be successful. They may not change education as much as it needs to be changed, but will be a step in the right direction.

I have been involved in both the previous and present curriculum changes which he mentioned. In the early 1970s, in making the change from the Cambridge School Certificate to the East African and then Uganda School Certificate, we did try to move in the direction he rightly says is needed. We developed syllabuses which were not only more relevant to Uganda but which attempted to move away from the emphasis on rote learning of knowledge to the development of more useful skills, thinking, analysis and creativity.

Unfortunately, their introduction in the early 1970s coincided with a long period of political instability which prevented the retraining of teachers which is an essential part of any curriculum reform. The new syllabuses were implemented largely by teachers used to the old methods of simply cramming knowledge, often not even understood, for the passing of exams.

In my own subject of Geography, for instance, we thought that students should learn about other selected areas of the world in order to compare and contrast these with Uganda to find out what we can learn from other societies.
For instance, by learning about large scale commercial farming in North America or the development of industries in the Rhinelands, we could ask what is relevant to our own development. Instead, the teachers and text book writers turned this into detailed studies of the Geography of those areas with no reference to Uganda. This has rightly been highly criticised. This kind of process happened in all subjects, which reverted to rote learning based on ‘pamphlets’ full of often useless knowledge to be reproduced in the exams.

The new secondary curriculum, as Mr Okurut says, tries to get back to the emphasis on skills, thinking for yourself, analysis and creativity. However, I am more optimistic that this time we can succeed.

A retraining programme for teachers and revision of the initial teacher training, are an essential part of the new curriculum and have already been planned for. Even more important is revision of the examinations, so that they do not just test the reproduction of facts but test the ability to think and analyse, the use of both practical and thinking skills and creativity. We have already produced sample questions in all learning areas along these lines.

For instance, in the example above, we would not ask learners to describe the geography of part of North America but would give a photograph or map of an area and a description of the farming, ask students to describe the farming from these and ask them what they think is relevant to the development of farming in Uganda from these examples. We would not ask them to simply describe the system of government in Uganda using a diagram, but ask them why it is important that judges and the police are independent from the Executive. We might also ask what kinds of corruption can be used in electing Members of Parliament and how this can be overcome.

In Science, we would not ask them to explain what is meant by molecular structures but to explain how molecular structures affect everyday things such as wood, paper, fibres and plastics and be able to recommend the types of materials most suitable for particular purposes. These kinds of questions test skills and the ability to think for yourself, not just memory of knowledge.

By setting exams which test the kind of skills we want to develop, the analysis of given information, the ability to be creative and asking for the learner’ own ideas and opinions, we will force both teachers and learners to develop these abilities rather than just the ability to memorise knowledge.

I agree that it is hard at this stage to get away from the emphasis on exams for selection processes but, by setting the right type of exams, we can make sure the aims of the new syllabus are achieved. At the same time we can hopefully change people’s ideas on what education is all about.

The new curriculum does not go nearly far enough in emphasizing useful practical skills for employment and self-employment, but I believe it is much better than the present one and has a good chance of succeeding.