Janet Museveni tasks universities on new curricula
First Lady and education minister Janet Museveni delivers her remarks during the release of 2024 UACE results at State House Nakasero on March 14, 2025. PHOTO/ISAAC KASAMANI
What you need to know:
- The First Lady said they are making strategic investments in reviewing the new curricula to become meaningful but also enjoyable for both the learners and teachers.
Education Minister Janet Kataha Museveni has tasked universities to align their curricula with the new competence-based, project-based, and learner-centred Secondary Education Curricula.
Ms Kataha was speaking yesterday during the release of the 2024 Uganda Advanced Certificates of Education (UACE) examinations at State Lodge Nakasero in Kampala.
“For us as the government, to sustain the milestones and successes that come with re-configuring the O-Level and A-Level curricula into competence-based, project-based, and learner-centred, the higher education institutions must, as a matter of necessity and urgency, review their respective curricula for initial teacher education and training,” Ms Kataha said.
She added: “The mismatch where universities continue to graduate teachers who cannot utilise competence-based, and learner-centred curricula is undesirable. Therefore, for this mismatch to be cured in the universities and higher education institutions, the academic staff who train the teachers must also re-align their learning delivery methods to become competence-based and learner-centred.”
Ms Kataha said as government, they are making strategic investments in reviewing the new curricula to become meaningful but also enjoyable for both the learners and teachers.
“So, I call upon the teachers and parents to support your children as they navigate learning using the revised Lower Secondary Curriculum – and now the A-Level Curriculum that has also been adapted to utilise similar teaching and learning methodologies as those of the O-Level curriculum,” she said.
Dr Mathias Mulumba, the Dean of the School of Education at Makerere University, told Monitor yesterday that they started training their staff in 2020, who are now training their students on this competency-based curriculum.
“This is the best curriculum Uganda has ever had and for the teaching profession, we are producing a teacher who will be able to go and empower learners in secondary schools under this curriculum because it is targeting the learner, and it is empowering the learner, to gain those much-needed competencies that will help this learner fit within the workplace,” Dr Mulumba said.
Ms Kataha also tasked stakeholders in the education sector to question why the number of candidates is increasing.
Mr Dan Odongo, the executive director of Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb), said the end-of-cycle examinations across all levels for the year 2024, saw a 7.1 percent increase in total candidature, whereas 2024 UACE examination results alone had a 28 percent increase in the number of candidates.
“These end-of-cycle results provide a quick reflection of the health of the basic and secondary education system in our country. Therefore, it is important that the various levels of government, as well as the education system – and other stakeholders in the education sector, interest themselves whenever these end-of-cycle results are being released,” Ms Kataha said.
Ms Kataha said: “When we allow ourselves to see the release of these results as another annual routine, we miss the salient message that is being communicated to us about not only the performance of our children but the health of the education system too. For example, there is a need to take interest in what has led to the significant increase of 28 percent in UACE candidature for the year 2024 compared with previous years.”
Background
In 2020, the Ministry of Education rolled out the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) for the lower secondary school level. This introduced the need for assessment reforms, incorporating new components such as Continuous Assessment (CA) and Project Work, in addition to the existing End-of-Cycle examination.
Under the new grading system, ‘A’ signifies exceptional achievement, followed by ‘B’ for outstanding performance, ‘C’ for satisfactory, ‘D’ for basic, and ‘E’ for elementary.
The revised A-Level curriculum was rolled out last month and it lists the syllabus for each subject with topics of study across all 29 subjects offered at this level, and the method of instruction changed from knowledge and objective-based approach to an integrated learner-centred competency-based approach.
In A-Level, projects and project-based learning have been introduced to promote active and experiential learning and enhance creativity and innovation among the learners. At O-Level, continuous assessment contributes 20 percent of the final mark, while end-of-cycle examinations conducted by the Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) constitutes 80 percent.
More stories on UACE 2024 results:
UACE 2024 results:Uneb urges government to strengthen STEM education
UACE 2024 results:Performance drops as candidate numbers surge
