As universities prepare to shift from knowledge-based teaching to Competence-Based Education and Training (CBET), the Ministry of Education and Sports has told academics it’s time to adapt or be left behind.
Permanent Secretary, Dr. Kedrace Turyagyenda said lecturers and professors must be ready for a system that demands practical skills over theory.
‘The learning and teaching process at this level won’t be business as usual,’ she warned.
The directive follows a letter from Education Minister and First Lady Janet Museveni more than a year ago, asking universities and the National Council for Higher Education to retrain lecturers. The goal is to equip students with skills that match the realities of the job market after years of employer complaints about graduates lacking practical ability.
‘Competence-Based Education and Training is what we are set on,’ Turyagyenda said while officiating at the launch of a multi-million Euro EU-funded project at NCHE headquarters in Kampala on Monday, May 25.
She had a direct message for senior academics: ‘Those participating in the pilot should be ready to unlearn, learn and relearn, especially the professors. You have done something for such a long time to be called professors but you need to commit yourselves to start unlearning, learning and relearning. It is no longer as it was in the beginning, is now and shall be for ever. We want tangible results, not theories, not results on a piece of paper but the capacity to do something.’
The project, Proliferation of Local Expertise in the Development of a Green-Growth Economy (PLEDGE), is worth pound 1 million, about Shs4.3 billion. It aims to close the gap between classroom training and industry needs by embedding CBET in universities, with a focus on coffee, tourism, and horticulture value chains.
Partners include Mountains of the Moon University as coordinator, Uganda Martyrs University, Bukalasa Agricultural College, Management Institute of Science and Technology, and international institutions like HSWT and Ghent University.
NCHE Executive Director Prof. Mary Okwakol said CBET is the most effective way to make higher education relevant.
‘It emphasises practical skills, critical thinking, problem-solving, innovation, and application of knowledge to real-life situations. We must move beyond theoretical instruction and focus more on producing graduates with competencies that match labour market needs and national development priorities,’ she said.
NCHE has already released standards for CBET implementation and is training staff through regional training-of-trainers sessions. The council also plans to support a national policy on greening sectoral skills, an intersectoral supervision board, and a Green Competence Framework.
Mr. Marko Stojanovic, Head of Training Academy at Western Balkans Institute in Serbia, said PLEDGE will support restructuring of study programmes in tourism, coffee, and horticulture over the next four years.
Dr. Vicent Ssembatya, Director of Quality Assurance and Accreditation, noted that universities will need to invest heavily in infrastructure and retool staff to deliver the new curriculum.
Mountains of the Moon University Vice Chancellor Prof. Pius Coxwell Achanga said the university has already set up a CBET committee and costed a Shs 4 billion roadmap to retool staff and upgrade facilities.
‘Why should someone study Agriculture for all those years and end up riding a boda-boda?’ he asked.
Universities and other higher education institutions are expected to begin implementing the CBET curriculum in the 2027/2028 academic year.