GREAT IDEA. Uganda Government Changes Teaching Curriculum In Schools.

    

Students doing exams

Government Scraps End of Term Exams For Ordinary Level (Senior 1 to 4).

Government has scrapped termly examinations in the revised lower secondary curriculum which takes effect this first term opening next week.

Reports show that the ministry of Education, through the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC), introduced projects which students will be doing at the end of every topic.

The teachers will required to record their achievements daily and support them where they have failed until some level of proficiency is attained before another topic is introduced.

James Aisle Droti, the NCDC specialist, told the newspaper that teachers can, however, administer end of year examinations for purposes of giving feedback to parents on how their children performed.

Droti termed it “identifiers” that have been grouped between one to three.

For instance, children who appear in identifier one, will mean they have acquired basic information and need support while those in groups two and three achieved to a greater extent.

As such, beginning of term, midterm and end of term tests are not necessary because a teacher will be doing classroom-based assessment.

“We expect a teacher to observe students during an activity and engage them in a conversation through questioning,” Doti told Monitor.

“We expect learners to come up with an exercise, project or assignment and a teacher will evaluate how a child has progressed.”

Changes

The name for the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) has also been changed to Uganda Certificate for Lower Secondary Education.

School instructional time is from 8am to 2.55pm but the school day will run up to 4.30pm each working day.

Each lesson is 40 minutes which will add up to 40 periods per week.

Alex Kakooza, the ministry’s permanent secretary, said they are training teachers who will begin with the pioneer Senior One students when they report on February 17.

In the new curriculum, subjects have been reduced from 43 to 21.

Schools will be expected to offer 11 compulsory subjects at Senior One and Two in addition to one elective.

At Senior Three and Four, students will take seven compulsory subjects plus two electives.