Government pleads with MPs in row over new curriculum

Ministry of Education officials pushed back on Thursday against House resolution halting implementation of the new lower secondary curriculum, pleading with lawmakers to reconsider their stance on the new government policy.

Sunday Monitor has seen a confidential document to Parliament, detailing ministry of Education’s responses to the questions MPs raised on Tuesday before they resolved to suspend implementation of the new lower secondary curriculum.

The ministry’s response to members concerns will be presented to Cabinet on Monday and Parliament on Tuesday.
During a heated debate in Parliament, the MPs argued that the suspension would allow government to prepare adequately for the countrywide rollout of the new curriculum.

The MPs across the political spectrum, one after the other, asked about the assessment measures in case a child changed a school.
In their response, the ministry however, explained that each learner will have a score card as evidence that they studied the topics.
In addition, they said there is a proposal to have all students registered and each given an identification number which will be used in transfering their records.

Although 80 per cent of the country’s economy depends on agriculture, the MPs noted that this subject wasn’t prioritised by the curriculum developers.

New curriculum
In the new curriculum, government wants to make agriculture optional yet the sector contributes nearly one-third of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employs 75 per cent of the population.

But the Education ministry defended their decision saying “agriculture is practical which requires resources like land and equipment and making it compulsory wouldn’t make it effective for the government.”

The new curriculum will have 21 subjects instead of 43 in the current one. It is ready for rollout on February 17 when Senior One students report.

Education Minister Janet Museveni confirmed on Friday that she will seek guidance from Cabinet on Monday about Parliament’s resolution to halt new curriculum implementation.

“We have heard concerns raised by Members of Parliament regarding the rollout of the lower secondary curriculum. We plan to present this matter to Cabinet [on Monday] for guidance of the sector so that we know for now how to go,” Ms Museveni said this while releasing the 2019 Uganda Business and Technical Examinations results in Kampala.

“I would like Parliament to walk with us this journey. Some of them are parents and leaders. We want them to feel confident that what we are bringing is good for our children and this country,” she added.

Senior One and Two students will study 12 subjects 11 of which are compulsory. As they advance to Senior Three, the compulsory subjects will reduce to seven and the candidates will exit after four years of study with a minimum of eight subjects and a maximum of nine.
The termly exams are to be scrapped and introduced projects which students will be doing at the end of every topic with teachers required to record their achievements daily and support them where they have failed until some level of proficiency is attained before another topic is introduced.

On the issue of textbooks, the ministry said the syllabi for the compulsory subjects had already been distributed to both private and government schools. They explained that National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) was using prototypes to train the teachers.

During a question and answer session with the media at Prime Minister’s Office, the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Mr Alex Kakooza, said printing of the actual textbooks will be in July this year.

The PS explained that while his docket needed Shs70b for the initial rollout of the new curriculum, the money was not readily available and opted to cut the budget to Shs39b to enable them start.

So far, Shs10.3 billion has been released to support teacher training and printing textbooks which Mr Kakooza said will be ready by July.
“We had planned for Shs70 billion for the initial rollout and when we looked for these funds, we couldn’t get it. We decided to put off some of the activities that were not immediately required like assessment which will be done at the end of the year,” Mr Kakooza said.

He added: “The process of buying books has just started. But we have gone ahead and improvised and got exemplars which we have distributed to all government and private schools in order for them to begin implementing the curriculum. The Shs10.3b which we have for these activities will take us through the first phase. We expect to get more money in the next quarter. We are ready to proceed.”

An inside source who requested anonymity to speak freely however, told Sunday Monitor that there is no enough money to print textbooks and that some schools will be asked to buy their own copies although a specific cost has not yet been revealed.

The ministry also explained that they opted to retool four teachers per school because each teacher handles two subjects. This means that under the arrangement, each school has eight compulsory subjects with four trained teachers.

Mr Kakooza said they will look for funding to train in the other three subjects. Although the MPs said they were not consulted, officials in the ministry of Education explained that they met MPs on the Education Committee between 2016 and 2017.

Other people who were considered during consultations include religious and cultural leaders, head teachers’ and teachers’ associations and the vice chancellors’ forum.

The curriculum team also benchmarked in Ghana, Singapore, Botswana, Turkey, Kenya and Finland.

The government further explained in the document that in an August meeting with the MPs, they proposed to NCDC that since the curriculum design had been maintained as subjects from the earlier proposed learning areas, there was no need to pilot it especially that there was limited funding.

Ms Grace Baguma, the NCDC executive director, said they have 1,246 Kiswahili teachers, enough to roll out the now compulsory subject.
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