Govt approves abridged curriculum for schools

The Ministry of Education has made a U-turn and approved a one-year abridged curriculum that will be used to teach learners when schools reopen next Monday, Daily Monitor has learnt. 

Officials at the Education ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to the media, said they have developed hybrid content that includes what learners missed when schools were closed, and new material they are supposed to study in their new classes. 

Officials in the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) added that they have created an abridged curriculum that condenses material worth two years into one year. 

For-instance, a pupil who was in Primary Four before the lockdown is now expected to move to Primary Five and will now be taught material for both classes in one year under the new abridged curriculum. 

“By the end of this year we expect to cover the backlog of the previous class and the content for the current class the students and pupils are joining,” an official familiar with the new curriculum said. 

Training teachers
However, while the curriculum was supposed to be in the hands of teachers before reopening of schools on January 10, this will not happen because the process was delayed by a lack of money.

As a result, the government will not be able to train all the teachers across the country on how to deliver the new abridged curriculum in the remaining six days before the reopening of schools.

This publication has learnt that NCDC officials are slated to kick-start the training of teachers, called “master trainers” today. The 260 master trainers handpicked from each region will then train their colleagues.

Government needs about three weeks to train all teachers to deliver this abridged curriculum. As a result, it has staggered reporting dates for learners for one week and asked schools to use the two weeks to orient learners by revising what they learnt before the lockdown and offer them psychosocial support to buy time for the training.

“Two weeks will be for orientation,” a source told this newspaper. “Bring children to learning situations because many of them are in their own world. So if we have resources available, we shall conclude the training and will be ready to start teaching the new content.” 

The new curriculum applies to learners who have been promoted to the next class. Pupils in Primary One and students in Senior One and Five will not be affected because they are new entrants who have not missed any content. The abridged curriculum will apply to all other learners.

Announcing the schools calendar on December 15, Education minister Janet Museveni said all learners, who were at school before the lockdown, would automatically be promoted to the next class without being subjected to promotional exams. 

When contacted for comment yesterday, the executive director of NCDC, Dr Grace Baguma, referred us to the Director Basic Education in the Ministry of Education, Mr Ismail Mulindwa, or spokesperson Dr Denis Mugimba. 
Mr Mulindwa said he had not received the final abridged document from the NCDC and referred us back to NCDC or Dr Mugimba. 

Dr Mugimba confirmed that the Ministry had approved the abridged curriculum. 
“You remember we just promoted learners to the next class most especially those in lower primary when they have not learnt anything. This abridged curriculum is going to be a very resourceful tool to us and any other countries,” he said. 

He was, however, yet to receive the final document from NCDC by press time. 
NCDC is yet to present the final copy of the abridged curriculum to the Ministry of Education and schools. NCDC was late last year stuck with a draft of a condensed curriculum for learners, slightly over a month before schools reopened after the ministry failed to disburse Shs13 billion required for the exercise on time. 

The Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Ms Ketty Lamaro, told this newspaper in December 2021 that the ministry was still considering whether to use the abridged curriculum given that schools were going to reopen fully. 

This stalled the process of completing the development of the abridged curriculum. Now the ministry has made a U-turn and approved the abridged curriculum and is said to have released an undisclosed amount of monet to cater for the process. 

The Secretary General of Uganda National Teachers Union (Unatu), Mr Filbert Baguma, said he was not aware of the training of teachers on the abridged curriculum. 

“The Ministry came up and said they had dropped the idea of the abridged curriculum. Now if they come up and say they are going to train teachers, they are going to confuse the whole situation and render the issue of reopening chaotic,” he said. 

He added: “The Minister of Education asked schools to come up with strategies to recover the lost time. Before people begin preparation, you say abridged curriculum. There must be a confusing agent in the ministry, and they must be put to order.”

The national chairperson of Secondary Schools’ Head Teachers’ Association, Mr Martin Okiria, said schools welcome the new abridged curriculum that is uniform to be able to cover the content learners lost during the lockdown. 

He, however, said the timing is not good since schools are reopening in a few days. 
“The beauty about the new curriculum is that it outlines content to be taught in every class. This is thus self-explanatory to the teachers to have an accelerated teaching and coverage of syllabus so I am very sure we shall handle,” he said.

Issue. . .Reopening schools
President Museveni closed schools in March 2020 following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The schools were later reopened in October 2020 for candidate classes and later for other classes though it was done in a phased manner.

However, in June 2021, folowing a surge in cases, schools were again closed. 
Some classes like Primary One to Three and Senior One and Two had not reported to school.