Schools decry lack of new curriculum text books

Ministry of Education rolled out a new lower secondary curriculum last year slated to start with the newly admitted senior one students

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Secondary schools have decried the lack of textbooks for the new lower secondary curriculum.

The schools note that the National Curriculum Development Center-NCDC availed them inadequate textbooks while other schools are yet to receive the textbooks.

Mike Ssekago, the headteacher Wampewo Ntake Secondary School,says that they are waiting for the Ministry of Education to avail them more textbooks as promised.

He says that it is still hard to give lessons to the senior one students without adequate textbooks.

Under the new lower secondary school curriculum, both the teachers and the learners have their separate copies.

Lawrence Ssemujju, the Director of Studies at City High Secondary School in Wakiso says that the two copies that were issued to them on each subject just outline the new topics they have to cover with no content.

He also notes that the school is facing challenges to access the content of the NCDC website due to the high costs of the internet.

“The school cannot afford the internet required to download all the textbooks required to teach under this new curriculum, it’s our prayer that NCDC puts the books on the market,” Ssemujju said.

Patrick Nyonnyintono, the Director of Kann Secondary School says that NCDC failed to fulfill its promise of issuing the textbooks to the school.

About the content on the website, Nyonnyintono says that the content is incomplete and that NCDC keeps updating the content.

However, the Executive Director of National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC), Grace Baguma, encouraged schools to navigate the NCDC portal and access the content.

Last year, according to Uganda Publisher’s Association, it was revealed that an estimated 30 Billion Shillings had been spent by 20 publishing houses to develop textbooks for the new lower secondary curriculum. The money was reportedly spent to develop draft copies of textbooks that will be sent to the Education and Sports Ministry for evaluation and selection through an open bidding system.

Each publisher was required to present two copies of the teacher’s guide and a student copy of a selected subject.

Under the new lower secondary curriculum, the senior one and two classes are supposed to study twelve subjects of which 11 are compulsory and one selective.

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