Vocational teachers reject govt reforms

A section of teachers from various public Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions yesterday rejected the government’s decision to scrap their subjects from the curriculum.

More than 100 teachers, from 128 TVETs, gathered at Ntinda Vocational Institute and openly demanded that the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) accept their early resignations instead of redeploying them to secondary schools.

The government, as part of its advanced plans, intends to eliminate eight subjects, including Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, English, Entrepreneurship, History, and Business studies, from the TVET curriculum.

These, according to Mr Eddy Turyatemba, the Assistant Commissioner TVET at MoES, were rendered redundant, after the enactment of the 2019 TVET policy which birthed the Competence-Based TVET curriculum.

During the meeting, teachers highlighted the unfairness of their imminent deployment to secondary schools without the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) having the new TVET curriculum.

Sources indicated that teachers and heads of public TVETs accused the ministry of making decisions without proper consultation.

“The Commissioner Human Resource Management (C/HRM) at the ministry admitted that whatever had been done was done without the involvement of the stakeholders and the ministry of Public Service. It was a heated meeting where multiple teachers refused to sign transfer forms that had been brought by the ministry,” a source told this publication yesterday.

“Majority of the teachers demanded for an early retirement instead of going to be exploited because the salaries of secondary schools is lower than the TVETs and yet they are going to start afresh since there are no promotions in secondary schools,” the source added.

Ministry officials, led by the C/HRM, struggled to address the concerns of the angered teachers, who accused the officials of selfish motives.

Mr Francis Kweyamba, an English teacher, who has served at Kihiihi Community Polytechnic since 2007,  criticised the ministry for deeming subjects such as English as redundant, emphasizing the global importance of the language.

“These children of ours have just left Primary Seven, when their tenses, grammar  and communication is terrible so we try to train and change them to make them better to at least fit in this era of ours,” he said,

Officials, however, said English would be taught by the available technical teachers because “for example a plumbing instructor already knows English,”

However, Mr James Asega, another teacher, argued that the technical majors intended to replace them wouldn’t be able to teach subjects as effectively.

A one Michael, from Kakira technical institute raised concerns about salary reductions.

“My question is if you are to redeploy me top secondary, you must maintain my salary scale of  U-5 because I have never worked anywhere apart from this technical, so I am requesting that if you are to cross us promote us,” he said.

background

In 2019, the government enacted TVET policy, aimed at increasing the quality of education offered at different TVETs, both public and private.

Government in the policy seeks integrated and mainstream training of TVET lecturers, tutors, instructors and trainers within the TVET system and subjecting them to the minimum competence-based qualifications.

“The policy aims at improving the quality of the TVET system….through….reviewing and developing a TVET-specific admission system for the relevant qualification levels, and as well regularising the TVET assessment and Certification Body with specific functions related to the preparation, coordination, research and promotion of; syllabi, examination, assessment and certification of learners,” the policy reads in part.

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