By David Lukiiza
When the Government introduced the new Competence-Based Lower Secondary School Curriculum (CBC), many schools did not have the capacity and technical expertise to implement it.
In the process, some schools sent their staff for training at the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC).
To retool their staff even further, in addition to the training at NCDC, the administration of Aggrey Memorial School in Bunamwaya sought more training in implementing CBC from the Directorate of Industrial Training (DIT).
According to Robinah Nakagolo, the school head, Aggrey Memorial School has benefited immensely from DIT.
“We chose DIT training for subjects in which our staff already had skills,” she says.
Nakagolo also explains that after the DIT training, it became much easier for the teachers to implement the new curriculum.
With the DIT training, the school administration is now able to teach 11 subjects of the 12 set by the education and sports ministry.
Selection of subjects
According to Juliet Katali, the school’s director of studies, Aggrey Memorial decided to engage parents and students in choosing what they want to study.
“This approach gave the students an opportunity to choose to learn an occupation they are passionate about. This in itself makes them eager to learn,” she says.
Katali explains that the school trains students in agriculture, interior designing, baking, weaving, tailoring, cooking, ICT, aerobics, liquid and bar soap-making.
She says students are excited about the programme and maximize the time they are given every week to train in their occupations.
“I believe it was wise for the school to take our staff through the training because, with this, students have enough time to interact with their teachers and ask for their opinion concerning the occupations they choose,” she says.
The Government rolled out the lower secondary education curriculum in February 2020, with the aim of meeting learners’ needs, especially in regard to skills training and enhancement.
The Minister of Education, Janet Museveni, in her statement to Parliament, said the need to review the curriculum had been overdue since it had not been revisited since the colonial education system was introduced.
She revealed that the old curriculum was churning out graduates with no practical skills to meet the demands of the labour market. NCDC has made adjustments in the teaching subjects for lower secondary.
For example, in the lower secondary curriculum, the teaching subjects have been reduced from 43 to 21.
In the new approved curriculum, schools will teach 12 subjects at Senior One and Two, out of which 11 will be compulsory while one will be from an elective menu (optional).
Students at Levels Three and Four will exit with a minimum of eight or a maximum of nine subjects with seven of them being compulsory.
