The Government has unveiled a new plan showing how learners under the new lower secondary school curriculum will transit to A’ level.
Under the plan, the education ministry will roll out a transitional curriculum, which will be designed by abridging the current A’level curriculum.
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The transitional curriculum will be deployed for about four years, according to an impeccable source at the education ministry. The current cohort of Senior One (S1) class is expected to be the last batch to be enrolled under the proposed transitional curriculum.
THE CHANGES
Under the transitional curriculum, the source said, government will not introduce the new A’ level curriculum that had been proposed by the National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC).
However, the NCDC will condense the existing curriculum by eliminating redundancies, repetition and obsolete content.
The source explained that NCDC has been tasked with ensuring that they change the objectives of the current knowledge-based A’level curriculum, with a view to equip learners with competences in the various areas of study.
“Just like the new O’level curriculum, the transitional curriculum will be competence-based, but focusing on the old curriculum topics,” the source explained.
“In addition, the curriculum body must ensure that some content that had been eliminated at O’level, and needed for university education, be incorporated into the transitional curriculum. This is expected to be concluded before the current calendar year comes to an end.
“For instance, in chemistry, a topic on Mole concept had been eliminated at O’level with the view that it would be studied at A’ level. Such topics will be incorporated into the transitional curriculum,” the source said.
Thereafter, the source said, the ministry and its agency will embark on training A’level teachers how to implement the competence–based transitional curriculum.
CABINET ON THE REFORMS
Pressed for further details, the source said that the First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports, Mrs Janet Museveni, is expected to address the country to announce the details of the transitional curriculum.
However, yesterday, Dr Chris Baryomunsi, the ICT minister, confirmed that on Monday, Mrs Museveni tabled before Cabinet an information paper on the review of the A’level curriculum.
While addressing journalists yesterday on the cabinet resolutions at the Uganda Media Centre in Kampala, Baryomunsi noted that the planned transitional curriculum is intended to ensure effective progression of learners from the new O’level curriculum to A’level.
“The new curriculum is a major shift from the way most of you were taught, where the teaching in class was teacher, examination and tests-based.
Now the focus is on the methods of instruction which are more to do with the practicals — experiential learning,” he said.
Baryomunsi explained that the education ministry information paper was intended to bring Cabinet on board and appreciate what the ministry had done to align A’level curriculum with the one of O’level that is already under implementation.
WHY A TRANSITIONAL CURRICULUM ?
In an interview with New Vision, Dr Denis Mugimba, the education ministry spokesperson, explained that the transitional curriculum was considered as a result of resource constraints which would not allow a complete overhaul of the current A’level curriculum.
In addition, he said, the transitional curriculum is intended to facilitate a smooth transition where the learners under the new O’level curriculum, continue with similar pedagogy and methodology of teaching to A’level.
“There will be a few changes where obsolete content, repetition and content overloads will be eliminated. This transitional curriculum will run up to 2028,” he added.
The main difference between the competence-based curriculum (CBC) and the knowledge-based curriculum (KBC) is that the former is readercentred whereas the latter is teachercentred.
Under the CBC, learners are given chance to carry out research, demonstrate and apply what they have learnt and they are later assessed for these competences.
For the KCB, learners rely on the knowledge and content as provided by the teacher and in the textbooks.
These have to wait for the end of cycle examinations to demonstrate their abilities.
Mugimba explained that the fouryear period will enable the education ministry through its agencies to overhaul the A’level curriculum.
He said the activities associated with the transitional curriculum will cost an estimated sh7b and that the largest part of this will cover training of A’level teachers to understand the new pedagogy.
However, he stated that there will be no new textbooks needed for the transitional curriculum since it focuses on the content under the old A’level curriculum.
EARLIER PLANS
The Government had planned for a new competence-based curriculum for A’level that was to be rolled out in 2025 to provide a smooth transition for the O’level students enrolled under the new curriculum.
Under the proposed new A’level curriculum, which has since been shelved, the NCDC had reduced the number of subjects taught from 40, to just 25.
In 2023, the NCDC embarked on writing the syllabus for the 25 subjects. Sources said all the content for the selected subjects had been completed.
Several subjects; both science and humanities, had had their content reduced. For instance, under geography, there was a proposal to reduce content on European and North American geography.
The curriculum developers had also completed developing a draft curriculum framework which guides on the learning outcomes as well as define standards.
The source further indicated that the team was only left with consultations with the different stakeholders on how the curriculum should be like.
However, in February this year, during the release of the 2023 Uganda Certificate of Education results, Mrs Museveni announced a pause in the review of the upper secondary school curriculum.
She said it was not wise to embark on another rigorous venture of full review of the A’ Level curriculum in the environment of limited resources across government.
According to Mrs Museveni, the sector technical teams guided that having learners of the new O’ Level curriculum progress into A-level and utilize the existing A’ level curriculum, did not in any way compromise their subject combinations. She also said that it does not jeopardise the students’ academic grounding.
WHAT EXPERTS SAY
Samuel Olong, a retired teacher of biology commended the Government for the development of a transitional curriculum.
“It is a good move. It is a good idea to have an arrangement for the learners who are coming from a totally different curriculum,” he said.
Samuel Wepukhulu, a mathematics teacher at Jinja Secondary School, also backed the idea of a transitional curriculum for A’level, noting that it will give the Government time to develop a better one. However, he recommended that the key topics be maintained in the transitional curriculum. “There was the worry that the learners would transition to a knowledge-based curriculum without changes. Now that the Government is thinking about a transitional arrangement, it is a good idea.”
