Plug loopholes in new secondary curriculum

In a mini-survey conducted by Monitor Publications this week on schools implementing the new Lower Secondary School Education Curriculum, teachers and school heads observed that there is need for enough instructional materials to be shared to all schools. They also noted lack of enough teachers to handle the new subjects as another huge challenge.

Despite resistance from Members of Parliament and other stakeholders, government started implementing the curriculum on Monday, the day Senior One entrants reported for First Term. Under the new curriculum, schools are required to teach 12 subjects at Senior One and Senior Two, of which 11 are compulsory while one is from an elective menu.

Uganda has not reviewed the education system it inherited from the British. The National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) in its preamble to the new lower secondary curriculum notes that for the past 30 years, the lower secondary school curriculum has only been changed by adding content, and therefore, it undertook to reduce the overall number of subjects, by grouping existing ones. Consequently, in 2008 the ministry of Education took a decision to undertake a thorough reform of the Lower Secondary Education Curriculum.

If we go by the statement that government undertook to do a thorough reform, then the dissenting voices would not arise. Parliament voted to halt the implementation of the new curriculum after stormy proceedings. It wants government to suspend the new curriculum roll out until textbooks to aid the teaching and learning and majority of the teachers are trained on the new methodologies.

From the ongoing debate around the new curriculum and its implementation, the conclusion can only be that enough was not done in the process of developing it and in its execution. How else would one explain, for example, the objection from Bunyoro Kingdom asking NCDC to halt the rollout of the new curriculum, arguing that it omitted facts related to Bunyoro?

A curriculum is what defines a country, it is a summation of its ambitions and objectives and is inculcated in a way that prepares for development and posterity. It is not done and implemented haphazardly. Learning objectives and learning materials must be there beforehand, instructors must be properly and amply retooled and allow the curriculum to cascade almost effortlessly.

Forcing a curriculum down the throats of implementers has never achieved its objectives, instead it is met with resistance and disdain. What would government lose if they allowed all stakeholders to harmonise their views and roll out something that is agreeable to many, if not all!