Education ministry extends holiday for over 20 schools

Kampala, Uganda  | THE INDEPENDENT |  The Education and Sports Ministry has extended holidays for over 20 government aided schools that will be used to train teachers on the new lower secondary school curriculum.

Some of the affected schools include Mount St Mary’s Namgunga, St Mary’s Kisubi, Trinity College Nabbingo, Kololo Secondary School, Kibuli Secondary School, Mvara Secondary School, Ntare School, Mpanga Secondary School, Duhaga Secondary School and Muntuyera High School.

According to the school calendar, learners are supposed to report back to school on February 3, 2020. However due to the ongoing training, the holiday has been extended by one week.

It is estimated that 22,000 teachers will participate in the trainings at regional level. Each school is expected to send five teachers at the designated schools for training.

Sam Kuloba, the Commissioner of Secondary School Education, says the training is part of government’s plan to roll out the curriculum in an organized way to ensure that it is effective.

The Ministry has so far trained 1600 lead and national trainers who will conduct the training countrywide. Students joining senior one in February 2020 will be the first lot of learners to study under the new curriculum.

Teachers and parents that URN spoke to said that the ongoing training is likely to affect the coverage of the syllabus for other students especially those in candidate classes.

Edward Kanoonya, the head teacher Kololo Secondary School says they will find a way to compensate for the week that the students will lose as the training takes place.

“To try and catch up with lost time, we shall have to push the school term by a week or have students report a week earlier at the beginning of the next school term so that we can catch up with lost time,” he said.

Joseph Twine Muganga, the head teacher Muntuyera High School Kitunga says they are going to make official announcements by the end of the day. He says that the one week holiday extension will not affect their coverage of the syllabus.

Mathew Mwine, a parent at Mount St Mary’s Namgunga says that they have not been notified officially about the extension of the holiday.

“I have been organizing to take by my child on Monday 3 only to be told yesterday by my daughter that the holiday had been extended due to the training of teachers. But the school has not yet communicated to us so am not sure who to believe,” Mwine said.

Emphasis will be placed on competence based learning under the new curriculum as opposed to cramming. The number of examinable subjects has been reduced from 43 to 21. Learners will be in class from 8:30 am to 2:45 pm after, which they will get time to study on their own.

Senior 1-2 will have 11 compulsory subjects and 9 electives. At S.3 and 4, the compulsory subjects will reduce to seven. At this stage, learners will have a total of 14 electives that will be divided into three groups

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URN