Education ministry abandons abridged school curriculum 

The Ministry of Education has abandoned the abridged school curriculum which was aimed at compressing the study work for learners in the limited time schools will have before promoting learners to the next class when schools reopen in January 2022.
The National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) completed the zero draft of the abridged curriculum for learners, but the process stalled because the Education ministry failed to disburse Shs13b required for the exercise.

According to highly placed sources, during a meeting with officials from NCDC on Wednesday, the Ministry of Education made a u-turn and revealed that it no longer needed the abridged curriculum at the moment.
One source said when schools reopen next year, learners will have enough time from January to December to cover all the content in the normal curriculum, hence the abridged one, which was developed for the purpose of phased reopening of schools, will not be required.

According to the source, the Ministry of Education instead proposed psycho-social support for teachers, whom it said should be trained on how to handle learners when they report back to school to ensure that all the content is covered.
The abridged zero draft curriculum was slated for lower and upper primary; and Ordinary and Advanced Level, and had some of the content in all subjects dropped, retaining only core topics.
If the Ministry of Education abandons the abridged curriculum, schools will have to proceed with the normal curriculum that was previously being used before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Normally, learners are taught for 36 weeks to cover three terms in a year, with each term lasting for 12 weeks.
However, some learners in Primary One to Three have spent nearly two years without going to school  while Senior One and Two students only studied for three weeks before the schools were closed in March 2020. This means that they have to handle all the remaining topics they did not cover in their previous class, as well as the work they have to handle in the next class.
For instance, if Senior Two students are promoted to Senior Three, teachers will have to ensure that they teach content for Senior Two and Three in 36 weeks.

When contacted yesterday, the Permanent Secretary for Ministry of Education, Ms Ketty Lamaro, said the ministry is still considering many options for when schools reopen, which will determine whether to take on the abridged curriculum or not.
“We are still mindful that the abridged curriculum could be required in the event of another lockdown given the new Covid-19 variant for accelerated learning,” Ms Lamaro said.
When contacted yesterday, the Executive Director of NCDC, Grace Baguma, said she was not aware of the ministry’s plan to drop the abridged curriculum.

She, however, questioned how the ministry will handle the content learners lost in 2020 and 2021.
Speaking yesterday during a performance management training workshop of heads of schools in Kampala, the Commissioner of Secondary Schools, Mr Sam Kuloba, said government is scheduled to start the training of teachers on psycho-social support.
“We are going to train teachers on how to manage learners who have spent a lot of time at home. Teachers will need to be innovative and creative in handling the curriculum,” Mr Kuloba said.

Mr Godfry Yikki, the head teacher of Anyavu Secondary School in Arua City, said: “Teachers should be able to teach only the relevant content to learners when schools reopen and leave out the irrelevant ones.”
Mr George Irumbe, the head teacher of Buyanza Secondary School in Kabale District, said teachers should be taken through the condensed curriculum which they were told is being developed by the NCDC.