Young professionals back curriculum reforms

EDUCATION  

KAMPALA - Young professionals have backed the Government on the lower secondary school curriculum reforms. They are, however, concerned whether the country has people with the right skills to implement the curriculum reforms.

"The curriculum reforms are actually good enough, but the question is, do we have the skills to deliver this to the students?" Emmanuel Okello, an ICT engineer, expressed.

Okello, speaking at an ICT breakfast event at Makerere University, emphasised that there is need to skill the people to deliver the new curriculum. 

The latest reform in the curriculum is the revised lower secondary curriculum that was rolled out this term.

Parliament had earlier voted to halt its implementation until the Government is ready and fully prepared to implement it.

The MPs argued that the Government, through the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC), should not roll out the curriculum without textbooks to aid the teaching and learning on top of the majority of the teachers lacking training in the new methodologies.

The new curriculum is competency-based and is aimed at exposing learners to issues of creativity and innovativeness and emphasizes values.

The current curriculum which has been in existence since colonial times has been criticised for being knowledge-based with little emphasis on skills and values.

It has been found wanting to adequately address the issues faced by the learners and the social-economic needs of the country.

The education ministry and NCDC have since 2005 in line with the recommendations of the Government White Paper of 1992, undertaken curriculum reforms starting with Early Childhood Development curriculum (ECD).

Under ECD, Government developed a Curriculum Framework which was translated into 16 local languages and others which had approved orthographies.

Then the review of the lower primary curriculum which was followed by the review of the upper primary curriculum between 2007 and 2013.

Angela Nabaweesi, the chief executive officer of Serenity Solutions, which organised the event, said to partly address the identified gap in skills by different professionals, they have offered to re-train the professionals to make them relevant to employers.

 

"We are also trying to build their ability to become self-employed," she said.

 

"Many of the professionals and their skills are too basic to actually work. They are not relevant to the employer, yet you have been through the University."

 

Henry Mukisa, who runs a career guidance project dubbed "I'm proud", said the young generation, needs to be exposed to different skills.

 

"But most importantly, to make them aware that life is not only about white collar jobs. Life is not all about being a lawyer, a teacher or an accountant, but there are other things you can do in life and take a shorter period of time and can enable young people to generate sources of income," he said.