Curriculum reforms will improve quality of education

The First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports Janet Museveni has said that government is discussing curriculum reform in order to address current gaps in the methods of learning and assessing the performance of learners in schools.

She said that effective assessment practice can make a big contribution to meeting the learning challenges faced. To do this she added, assessment should not just be about collecting data on learner's assessment but should contribute to continuous improvements of teaching and learning.

A press release from her office stated that Mrs. Janet Museveni revealed this on  Monday while presenting a paper on "policy making for assessment ", at the 2017 Education World Forum held in London.

This year's global summit for Education Ministers under the theme: Teaching, Testing, Talent and Technology brought together educational stakeholders from Europe, Asia, USA, Africa and the Middle East to discuss, benchmark and share best practice on how to improve on the quality of education in their respective countries.

In her key note address, presentation, the First Lady further said that government has invested heavily in the education sector over the last 25 years resulting into an increase in enrolment in primary schools from 2.5 million pupils in 1997 to at the launch of Universal Primary Education to over 9 million to date.

"No country can boast of achieving sustainable social-economic and political development without considerable investment in the population's education of that country," she noted.

She however noted that the greatest challenge now is to improve the quality of that education.

"The result is that many of the students who are ‘successful in school' may not have learnt enough of the skills and knowledge aligned with the current and future needs of the individual or employment and the future development of the country's economy", she regretted 

The First Lady emphasized that improvements in the education assessment system is necessary to ensure that learners actually learn what they need for the world of work.

She said that her ministry of also considers prioritizing the upskilling of teachers in assessment to improve their capacity to conduct formative classroom based assessment for learning.

Mrs. Museveni also revealed that there will be the 35th Annual Conference of the Association for Education Assessment in Africa (AEAA) that will run the theme: "Enhancing Efficiency and Effectiveness in Educational Assessment in an Era of Rapid Change" which will be held in Uganda in August 2017.