WILL AN OVERHAUL OF THE SYSTEM MAKE EDUCATION MORE RELEVANT?
Oct 06, 2009
CURRICULUM REFORM<br><br>A wave of changes is to drive through the country’s secondary school education curriculum; to make schooling more relevant to the country’s demands.
CURRICULUM REFORM
By Conan Businge
A wave of changes is to drive through the country’s secondary school education curriculum; to make schooling more relevant to the country’s demands.
“We are trying to move from an over-concern on teaching of ‘knowing that’ to ‘knowing how’. Leaving the old system of absorbing factual knowledge to developing knowledge competence,†Angella Kyagaba, a curriculum expert, explains.
This will be phase two of the curriculum reform. The first curriculum refurbishing early this year reduced the examinable subjects from 42 to 18 and defined the required student-to-teacher ratio.
The upcoming reforms are to include changing of the students’ national examining system, reduction of examinable subjects, re-writing of the learning materials and changing the age at which students make career choices.
Under the new curriculum, teachers will be more responsive to their students.
The current curriculum has never been reformed since independence. Most subjects were taught according to the British syllabus until 1974. The British examinations measured a student’s progress through primary and secondary school.
Education experts argue that there are rapid changes, necessitating a revamp of the country’s education system. Uganda has never had an education system with a proper package to develop the scholars’ skills. Even after colonisation, the localised curriculum was crafted to produce white-collar jobs.
The Government is counting on the World Bank, which is expected to give Uganda $375m (about sh712b), for a nine-year project. The World Bank, in the initial three-year project, gave Uganda $150m (sh292b). Of this, $4m (about sh7.8b) will go to curriculum development.
The World Bank will spend more $10m (sh19.5b) on the purchase of science equipment and $2m (sh3.9b) on changing the national examination system.
Kyagaba, of the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) explains students joining S.3 will opt for subject combinations which are broadly career-linked.
All students in S.3 will do a minimum of seven and maximum of 10 subjects, according to the new proposal. Students will have four career paths at S.3 and S.4. This will be in languages, science, vocational and humanities. There are particular subjects allotted to all career-paths.
But there will be compulsory subjects like English, Mathematics, Kiswahili, Science, humanities, and physical science; from which any student who has taken a particular path, will choose. If any of the compulsory subjects is already stipulated in any of the four career paths, it cannot be re-chosen as a compulsory subject. All students are expected to do Kiswahili. There are other electives like sports science, entrepreneurship and art, from which all students in the four career-paths can pick.
Connie Kateeba, the NCDC executive director, says compulsory subjects in S.1 and S.2 may reduce to a maximum of 10. This is in comparison to other countries in the region. Nigeria offers 10 subjects at this level and Norway 12. Singapore, Brunei, Britain, Malaysia and Thailand offer six compulsory subjects; the same number proposed in the overhauled curriculum.
Most of the old subjects on the curriculum will be dropped. These subjects, curriculum experts say, had overlapping content into the retained compulsory subjects. “Some of them had outdated content and others were rarely done by students,†explains an official from the education ministry.
Suspended subjects include political education, health science, general science, shorthand, office practice and typewriting. Others are building construction, power and energy, electricity and electronics, Fasihi ya Kiswahili (Literature in Kiswahili), and additional mathematics.
The current examination system which discriminates against a number of able-learners is to be churned out. “This will be replaced by a system that can accommodate a wide range of skills and abilities,†Kateeba argued.
It should also move away from setting items that test only understanding to the application of skills. The curriculum will look at examinations which are based on the learners’ potential, other than the set facts of a given subject.
There will be no more examinations which only require one to recall textbooks’ material. Application question like those set in the last year’s primary leaving examinations will take the rails in the education system.
The current textbooks in schools have been designed to support subjects which are primarily academic, and will be revised. The curriculum experts say, this literature is generally “content-heavy and written for learners with high reading levels.â€
The Government plans to print new easy-to-read textbooks with a wider range of content coverage, at a cost of about $27m (sh52.6b). The layouts of the books, graphs and pictures will also be changed. The special-needs policy for schools will also be redrafted to take care of the new demands of free secondary education.
What do head-teachers say?
Dr. John Muyingo, the head-teacher of Uganda Martyrs SS Namugongo, says the new curriculum is timely. “It flashes into the education future we have been yearning for.’ However, he cautions the Government against being driven by donors in revising the curriculum.
Gayaza High School head-teacher, Victoria Kisarale, says: “The reform is a great step in the country’s education. It is not fair to pile notes on students and later expect them to use that to answer exams. It is time we examined our students’ skills.†Though some head-teachers are skeptical about the availability of enough teachers to handle the new curriculum, education experts say teachers whose subjects were dropped will be retrained.
More teachers, especially those meant to handle compulsory subjects, will be hired. A major reform of teacher education colleges is also in the offing. The new curriculum also aims at creating two pipelines of the education systems in the country. One will be for the formal education and another for vocational (competence-based) education.
After primary, students will study the same content in S.1 and S.2. At S.3, each student will decide either to follow the formal education system, or resort to vocational studies.
Whereas those in formal education will have their national examinations entirely set by Uganda National Examinations Board, those of vocational studies will have theirs set by the Directorate of Vocational and Technical Studies (DVT).
Students in vocational institutes will get their certificates from the DVT, in additional to another from UNEB, for other subjects. Certification in vocational subjects will be equivalent to O’ and A’ level in the formal system. Vocational students will join universities, at the same ranking as their colleagues in formal education.
What critics say
Uganda’s education system has been criticised for generating graduates who are job-seekers. The deputy director of the Federation of Uganda Employers, George Tamale, says the current curriculum is churning out several unemployable people. Uganda’s curriculum overhaul is slightly behind Kenya and Tanzania; which have started revatalising their polytechnics and schools to offer market-drive courses and subjects.
Most of Uganda’s graduates were becoming unemployable internationally, according to Martin Lwanga, the director of operations of the Human Resource Management Association of Uganda. “We had sank to a level where some universities’ potential to train employable people was being questioned.
Lwanga says the decline in the quality of today’s graduates is partly attributed to private practioners in education because of liberalisation. Lwanga raises an issue of whether we can be assured, if the new curriculum will work.
The Government is to put up new schools nationwide and develop its old schools’ infrastructure. All the four government technical colleges will also be revamped. With a median age of 15, Uganda has the world’s youngest population, according to a 2008 World Bank report. It also has the highest youth (aged 15 to 24) unemployment rate; at 83%.
With the new curriculum in place is envisaged that one day, Uganda will have thousands of vocational graduates running entrepreneurships and hiring formal education graduates.
By Conan Businge
A wave of changes is to drive through the country’s secondary school education curriculum; to make schooling more relevant to the country’s demands.
“We are trying to move from an over-concern on teaching of ‘knowing that’ to ‘knowing how’. Leaving the old system of absorbing factual knowledge to developing knowledge competence,†Angella Kyagaba, a curriculum expert, explains.
This will be phase two of the curriculum reform. The first curriculum refurbishing early this year reduced the examinable subjects from 42 to 18 and defined the required student-to-teacher ratio.
The upcoming reforms are to include changing of the students’ national examining system, reduction of examinable subjects, re-writing of the learning materials and changing the age at which students make career choices.
Under the new curriculum, teachers will be more responsive to their students.
The current curriculum has never been reformed since independence. Most subjects were taught according to the British syllabus until 1974. The British examinations measured a student’s progress through primary and secondary school.
Education experts argue that there are rapid changes, necessitating a revamp of the country’s education system. Uganda has never had an education system with a proper package to develop the scholars’ skills. Even after colonisation, the localised curriculum was crafted to produce white-collar jobs.
The Government is counting on the World Bank, which is expected to give Uganda $375m (about sh712b), for a nine-year project. The World Bank, in the initial three-year project, gave Uganda $150m (sh292b). Of this, $4m (about sh7.8b) will go to curriculum development.
The World Bank will spend more $10m (sh19.5b) on the purchase of science equipment and $2m (sh3.9b) on changing the national examination system.
Kyagaba, of the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) explains students joining S.3 will opt for subject combinations which are broadly career-linked.
All students in S.3 will do a minimum of seven and maximum of 10 subjects, according to the new proposal. Students will have four career paths at S.3 and S.4. This will be in languages, science, vocational and humanities. There are particular subjects allotted to all career-paths.
But there will be compulsory subjects like English, Mathematics, Kiswahili, Science, humanities, and physical science; from which any student who has taken a particular path, will choose. If any of the compulsory subjects is already stipulated in any of the four career paths, it cannot be re-chosen as a compulsory subject. All students are expected to do Kiswahili. There are other electives like sports science, entrepreneurship and art, from which all students in the four career-paths can pick.
Connie Kateeba, the NCDC executive director, says compulsory subjects in S.1 and S.2 may reduce to a maximum of 10. This is in comparison to other countries in the region. Nigeria offers 10 subjects at this level and Norway 12. Singapore, Brunei, Britain, Malaysia and Thailand offer six compulsory subjects; the same number proposed in the overhauled curriculum.
Most of the old subjects on the curriculum will be dropped. These subjects, curriculum experts say, had overlapping content into the retained compulsory subjects. “Some of them had outdated content and others were rarely done by students,†explains an official from the education ministry.
Suspended subjects include political education, health science, general science, shorthand, office practice and typewriting. Others are building construction, power and energy, electricity and electronics, Fasihi ya Kiswahili (Literature in Kiswahili), and additional mathematics.
The current examination system which discriminates against a number of able-learners is to be churned out. “This will be replaced by a system that can accommodate a wide range of skills and abilities,†Kateeba argued.
It should also move away from setting items that test only understanding to the application of skills. The curriculum will look at examinations which are based on the learners’ potential, other than the set facts of a given subject.
There will be no more examinations which only require one to recall textbooks’ material. Application question like those set in the last year’s primary leaving examinations will take the rails in the education system.
The current textbooks in schools have been designed to support subjects which are primarily academic, and will be revised. The curriculum experts say, this literature is generally “content-heavy and written for learners with high reading levels.â€
The Government plans to print new easy-to-read textbooks with a wider range of content coverage, at a cost of about $27m (sh52.6b). The layouts of the books, graphs and pictures will also be changed. The special-needs policy for schools will also be redrafted to take care of the new demands of free secondary education.
What do head-teachers say?
Dr. John Muyingo, the head-teacher of Uganda Martyrs SS Namugongo, says the new curriculum is timely. “It flashes into the education future we have been yearning for.’ However, he cautions the Government against being driven by donors in revising the curriculum.
Gayaza High School head-teacher, Victoria Kisarale, says: “The reform is a great step in the country’s education. It is not fair to pile notes on students and later expect them to use that to answer exams. It is time we examined our students’ skills.†Though some head-teachers are skeptical about the availability of enough teachers to handle the new curriculum, education experts say teachers whose subjects were dropped will be retrained.
More teachers, especially those meant to handle compulsory subjects, will be hired. A major reform of teacher education colleges is also in the offing. The new curriculum also aims at creating two pipelines of the education systems in the country. One will be for the formal education and another for vocational (competence-based) education.
After primary, students will study the same content in S.1 and S.2. At S.3, each student will decide either to follow the formal education system, or resort to vocational studies.
Whereas those in formal education will have their national examinations entirely set by Uganda National Examinations Board, those of vocational studies will have theirs set by the Directorate of Vocational and Technical Studies (DVT).
Students in vocational institutes will get their certificates from the DVT, in additional to another from UNEB, for other subjects. Certification in vocational subjects will be equivalent to O’ and A’ level in the formal system. Vocational students will join universities, at the same ranking as their colleagues in formal education.
What critics say
Uganda’s education system has been criticised for generating graduates who are job-seekers. The deputy director of the Federation of Uganda Employers, George Tamale, says the current curriculum is churning out several unemployable people. Uganda’s curriculum overhaul is slightly behind Kenya and Tanzania; which have started revatalising their polytechnics and schools to offer market-drive courses and subjects.
Most of Uganda’s graduates were becoming unemployable internationally, according to Martin Lwanga, the director of operations of the Human Resource Management Association of Uganda. “We had sank to a level where some universities’ potential to train employable people was being questioned.
Lwanga says the decline in the quality of today’s graduates is partly attributed to private practioners in education because of liberalisation. Lwanga raises an issue of whether we can be assured, if the new curriculum will work.
The Government is to put up new schools nationwide and develop its old schools’ infrastructure. All the four government technical colleges will also be revamped. With a median age of 15, Uganda has the world’s youngest population, according to a 2008 World Bank report. It also has the highest youth (aged 15 to 24) unemployment rate; at 83%.
With the new curriculum in place is envisaged that one day, Uganda will have thousands of vocational graduates running entrepreneurships and hiring formal education graduates.