Kampala, Uganda |URN | The Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah has summoned the Education Minister to address Parliament about the revised lower secondary curriculum scrapping term examinations.
Oulanyah made the directive on Friday 31st January, 2020 after Igara East MP Michael Mawanda questioned several issues in the revised curriculum whose implementation starts next month.
This after it was reported that the Ministry of Education through the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC), had revised the curriculum and scrapped termly exams and instead replaced it with projects that students will do at every end of the topic.
Teachers will then be required to note the students’ progress before any other topic is introduced. However, teachers will be administering end of year exams in order to give feedback to parents and guardians.
The school instructional time will be from 8 am to 2:55 pm with each lesson taking 40 minutes. However, the school day will end at 4:30 pm.
The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education was quoted saying that training of teachers was already on-going since the new changes take effect on 17th February 2020 with the pioneer class of Senior One.
Oulanyah said that the matter is extensive and needs the Education Minister to appear before Parliament and explain the new changes. He tasked David Bahati, the Minister of Planning who was in the House to notify the Minister Janet Museveni.
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Government has already committed 72 billion Shillings to roll out the new competence-based curriculum. It is hoped that the new changes will aid students with creativity and innovation as opposed to just passing set exams.
The government started on the reform of the lower secondary curriculum in 2008 and repackaged it into subjects opposed to learning areas.
NCDC is expected to distribute textbooks to the pioneer class of Senior One in both public and private schools and also provide others as the students’ progress in the next classes.
