KAMPALA: The National Curriculum Development Centre is set to collaborate with teachers’ associations to train more teachers on the revised lower secondary curriculum in schools.
The government, through the Ministry of Education, rolled out the new lower secondary education curriculum in February 2020 intending to meet the learners’ needs, especially regarding skills training and enhancement.
Among the associations to collaborate with are ICT Teachers Association of Uganda, Coalition of Uganda Private School Teachers Association, Uganda Professional Science Teachers Union, and Uganda National Teachers Association (UNATU), among others.
Christopher Muganga, the Curriculum Specialist at the development centre, says they have started the process of teaming up with teachers’ associations to ease the training of teachers who will be master trainers in different schools.
He says the associations will help the development centre get close to the teachers who are members.
Muganga says the collaboration aims at easing the implementation of the curriculum, which has many activities, beginning with the training of teachers about the curriculum and then assisting them in class by doing the schemes and lesson plans.
Richard Natukunda Mpaka, a teacher of Geography at Rwemikoma Secondary School in Mbarara District, says they need more training to be more equipped with the revised curriculum.
He says many teachers have not gotten any training on the new curriculum and yet the students are being promoted to other classes, noting that by the end of the year, all teachers will need to be equipped.
Janat Naujuzi Kakumba, a Master Trainer of the curriculum, says since term one break, the National Curriculum Development Center has been training teachers from across the country in their respective regions, and in the Ankore region, 550 teachers from four districts of Mbarara City, Kazo Kiruhura, and Mbarara district have been trained.
She says the trained teachers are called master trainers and are tasked with training others in schools.
The National Curriculum Development Centre has made adjustments in the teaching subjects for the lower secondary. For example, in the new approved curriculum, schools will teach 12 subjects in Senior One and Two, out of which 11 will be compulsory while one will be optional.
Students at levels three and four will exit with a minimum of eight or a maximum of nine subjects, with seven of them compulsory.
