IS D.I.T A TRAGEDY GOLD IN EDUCATION?


“Education is the great engine of personal development. It’s through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that a son of miner can become the head of the mine, that a child of a farmer can become president of a great nation.” These were words of Nelson Mandela reflecting on the importance and power of education in society. However when running of education comes with challenges and when they are handled lightly they can haunt a whole system.

Students carrying out a practical exam


When the Uganda National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC) announced that the Education curriculum followed in lower secondary schools of Uganda was going to Change this glimpsed hope to many Ugandans who had been victims of the existing curriculum at the time. This curriculum has a core objective of passing on skills to students at an early stage in all Schools around the country, to solve lack of civil engagement, equity , social emotional learning (SEL) , skills, deep cognitive thinking and comprehension
Unskilled educated youths, had been the outcry of employers in the recent past.

Meeting the first requirement in the current job market that is skills orientation in almost all the fields was the first challenge to address in the then curriculum plus the other outdated syllabus that are no longer holding concrete impact to us as a nation.
However the roll out of this curriculum was first that the stake holders like institutions, teachers and students were not prepared to take on this gold that the Ministry of Education and sports put to their face to accomplish, teachers were not trained on how to handle this curriculum , how to ensure its effective and how to efficiently monitor its impact and progress across the divide.

The teachers through NATU their umbrella body asked the government that the curriculum is pure gold , however now it can be efficiently rolled out with no training to those that are supposed to pass it on. The continued to say it’s Total tragedy when the teacher doesn’t know what is teaching but they have to teach it with out rule book to follow and they advised that if this curriculum is to be successful more training and workshops are needed throughout the country to continue equipping the teachers with the possible basics to catch up and be able to bring up a right generation but not to grow it .


Currently the reviews towards the progress and adjustment to this new curriculum are on to find out how to address the incompetence and reactionary roll out of the curriculum to deter the tragedy out come of the curriculum. The first national wide assessment of students under this curriculum shall be a cardinal yardstick on upholding or holdback of the curriculum come 2024 the Ugandans will be ready to witness the outcome of this methodology of learning and whether they will reduce more theocratic subjects and substitute them with practical and applicable studies.


Article by
KATONGOLE ARNOLD.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

× How can I help you?