By Peter Ssebulime
Buganda Kingdom has announced its intentions to petition the education ministry to correct various defects within the new curriculum that is yet to be implemented.
Addressing journalists at Bulange, Mengo the Katikiro of Buganda Charles Peter Mayiga noted that there are four subjects that the ministry made optional to students yet they are very vital to the future generation and should be compulsory.
The four include, Agriculture, Languages, Information and Computer Technology [ICT] and history. Mayiga said a country that has more than 70 percent of its population residing in villages and hence dependent on agriculture for livelihood, cannot afford to have agriculture as an optional subject.
On history, he said that students must know the history of their country and making it optional is a great mistake that may make the future generation to do a lot of mistakes, on languages he notes that’s there is no way you can let students learn foreign languages yet many don’t know local languages.
He emphasized that making computer subject an optional subject is a great mistake since many Ugandans now can use technology to purchase goods and know everything using technology.
In September 2019, government that it would launch the new lower secondary education curriculum in which teaching subjects were reduced from 43 to 21.
The new curriculum was expected to be launched in February 2020 but parliament halted it for the second time in four years.
Under the new curriculum, teachers will compile the learners’ achievements under the formative assessment in the four-year cycle, find an average score and submit it to the Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) to contribute at least 20 per cent in the final national examinations grading.
