The change in curriculum at all levels of education in the country has had many starts and stops since the conversation began more than 10 years ago. In January 2020, government announced that the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) would start the roll-out of the new Lower Secondary Curriculum with training for 1,600 teachers.
However, just before the roll-out could happen, Parliament stepped in February 2020 to halt the implementation of the curriculum, for the second time in four years. This was to allow government to fix deficiencies. The deficiencies cited included the lack of textbooks and teaching aids. Head teachers were also said to be green about the curriculum.
In spite of the hiccups, by mid-2022, many schools had registered for the new curriculum, an encouraging development.
Teachers pointed out though, that some of the challenges with this learner-centred approach were that it required Internet, textbooks to do research and materials to complete projects.
In 2024, the Ministry of Education, Uganda National Examination Board (Uneb) and the curriculum developers overcame many of the hitches that dogged the lower secondary school curriculum, succeeded in training more than 50,000 examiners and enabled O-Level finalists to sit examinations under the new curriculum for the first time in 2024.
After that, the challenge has been extending the benefits of the revised competence-based curriculum to A-Level and higher education levels, among others.
This process has had its own false starts. Many of the same challenges faced with the lower secondary school curriculum implementation have been cited with the latest curriculum change-a lack of instructional materials and trained teachers among them.
The National Council for Higher Education roll-out of the higher education curriculum change is due to conclude in 2028, the same year that (Uneb) has announced it will unveil the Senior Six grading after the conclusion of the curriculum reform process.
We have less than two years left to the conclusion of the curriculum reform process, the education authorities need to do better consultation, develop materials and carry out a massive public awareness campaign.
As the implementation of the Lower Secondary Curriculum change showed, education on the new curriculum should go beyond schools, ministry officials and examiners.
If we change the curriculum and grading, parents who are footing the education bills should be able to understand the aims of the change and the grades their children eventually bring home after the reforms.