Dure - Pader, Uganda
A couple of MPs have been fuming
that the thematic curriculum is responsible for poor performance of some pupils
in the just concluded Primary Leaving Examination. They argued that the
introduction of mother language at formative years in school makes it
impossible for the pupils to score good grades in English. They blamed the
thematic curriculum for this poor performance and yet, the problem lies
elsewhere.
While these MPs are genuinely
concerned as parents, they exhibited total lack of knowledge on how education
success and scores are measured.
The basis for introducing mother
language in lower grade school emerged from scientific evidence from many years
of studies by scholars and UNESCO.
Consistent evidence illustrated clearly that
the overall quality of comprehension and articulation in scholarship are
significantly enhanced when a child has mastery of mother language or the first
language spoken at home.
The incoherence that we witness
in Uganda is embedded in this assumption that mastery of the English language is
a superior indicator of being educated or intelligent.
This serves to
illustrate how dominated and subjugated we are and how unconsciously we now
accept this explanation that our intellect is defined by our ability to
communicate in the English language. And yet, one of the most unfortunate things
ever to happen in Uganda is that this colonial tool of dominance called English
has not inspired any advance in any field relevant to human civilization.
Take for example in my village of
Dure. This year, pupils at Dure Primary School in Latanya sub-county of Pader
district have posted tremendous improvement in their PLE results. Two students
passed in first grade and 39 passed in second grade, 4 pupils passed in
division three and 3 students passed in division 4 category. So far, this has
been the biggest school grade achievement of this village school in its post
conflict recovery.
Dure Primary school is a rural
community school which suffers from challenges akin to rural schools in
Northern Uganda. However, this dismal and yet celebrated performance at Dure
Primary school provides an evaluation opportunity for those with keen interest
in the education of our children beyond English scores. The thematic curriculum
has huge promises where the benchmark for our intellect is not judged by one’s
scores in English but math and sciences alike.
Here in Dure, we have children
who lack in every facility and are heavily disadvantaged in comparison to
children in urban schools and in Western or Central Uganda generally. These
children may be already heads of their families at tender age because their
parents are either dead or immobilized by HIV/AIDS. Most of them live under
squalor with grandmother or relatives who are impoverished with very little to
eat.
Pader, like most post-conflict
Northern Uganda communities endures alcoholism and HIV prevalence which have
horrendously devastated homes and livelihood. Children study and compete with
their counterparts elsewhere without preps or doing homework because they have
no source of light to study after school.
So, the Universal Primary
Education is an important asset and any incremental performance in these rural
schools becomes a source of inspiration and hope for many guardians. Children
here have little prospects of advancing past primary schools because Universal
Secondary Education has become costly. Even the six (6) USE facilities are
distantly spaced. Small additional costs, such as transportation, basic
secondary school requirements and the roles that these children hold in their
families, always become major impediments to advancing to secondary school
education.
Therefore, these MPs must be
taught that performance of the thematic curriculum is not measured only by
scores in English grades in examination. There are many factors involved, for
instance, how well has Ministry of Education invested in improving the quality
of teaching workforce to meet this peculiar UPE challenges? Has the Ministry and
UNEB considered revising PLE examination standard to reflect the current English
instructional level for candidate classes?
Let’s give the thematic curriculum
a chance to gain traction.
END
No comments:
Post a Comment