The government will continue to roll out of the new curriculum for lower secondary school despite a resolution of Parliament halting the process.
Members of Parliament on 04 February 2020 passed a motion halting the exercise citing non-preparedness stemming from training of teachers, no sensitisation and consultations. The Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Kataha Museveni (pictured) while presenting a statement on the same on Thursday, 20 February2020, said that it is too late for the government to halt the roll out of the new curriculum as the process was already underway.
The Minister said that they held consultations with the cabinet and were guided not to halt the exercise but continue engaging Parliament until an agreement is reached.
“After extensive stakeholder consultations with the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC), there was no need to carry out a pilot study since there was no major change apart from reverting to the subject approach and a change of methodology of teaching and assessment,” she said.
Janet Museveni added that the new curriculum, its framework and syllabuses were distributed to all schools; trained 21 lead trainers, 90 national facilitators and 1600 master trainers trained the 20,000 teachers in preparation for the roll out.
She also said that there are developed prototypes and textbook specifications, which are being used by publishers to write textbooks.
“The available prototypes will be used to teach senior one learners as the Ministry of Education and Sports finalises the procurement of textbooks,” she said.
The Education minister also revealed that consultations with different stakeholders had been held between 2016 and 2018.
“During the process of interactions and consultations, members of Parliament on the Committee of Education met the Minister of Education at Entebbe and expressed their dissatisfaction of the learning area approach especially for the sciences and they guided on their expectation of the curriculum menu,” she added.
The Shadow Education Minister, Mathias Mpuuga said that the statement did not highlight the specifics and why the new curriculum was being rolled out.
“Education is a big issue that requires the consensus of those concerned, in this case Parliament as a stakeholder. The government needs to interact with us extensively so that the roll out is well executed,” he said.
Mpuuga stressed the need for a pilot project before the roll out to enable a smooth implementation of the new curriculum.
Speaker Rebecca Kadaga said that the minister’s statement was a clarification to Michael Mawanda who had raised the concern in the House. She added that a seminar will be held between the ministry and the MPs for further updates on the roll out.
The Prime Minister, Ruhakana Rugunda said that the cabinet advised the Minister of Education to carry on with the roll out based on her assurance that the Ministry was ready for the programme.
