SCHOOL CURRICULUM
The debate about the confusing nature of the hyped new Ugandan curriculum has resurfaced. Parliament has suspended the implementation of this curriculum, and yet, some select schools are already piloting the same curriculum. What will become of the students who will have been “guinea pigs” in this whole process?
Uganda’s education system has run out of relevance since it was suited to colonial interests. In previous dispositions, I argued that the school system was designed to reorient the colonized people to the British civilization and boost colonial labour force. The school system was never designed to produce critical thinkers, innovators, and entrepreneurs of the quality as those produced in England and the Western hemisphere. The Colonialists had accomplished all those, and the colonized were situated to consume and implement intellectual products of European cultures. A change in education system therefore, is a cultural revolution, and not merely changes of subject names, workloads, and categories.
Surprisingly, Ugandans have subjected themselves to such a repressive system of education, which has for all purposes and intents, reoriented Africans against their own civilization, identities, and causes. Many authors have written about the mis-education of the blacks, Negroes, or Colonized people. The colonial system ensures that we produce uninformed, uninspired, un-liberated graduates deprived of self-identity, self-efficacy, and self-worth.
In May of 2014, while attending the 2nd international Scientific conference of the Society for the Advancement of Science in Africa, in Kampala, I had a great chat with several lecturers and Professors from various Ugandan Universities about the challenges of current university enrolment. These dons all agree that the quality of students admitted at all their Universities have declined tremendously. Even the zeal befitting of regular university students have long declined.
Students come to Universities when they do not have the requisite skills, such as mastery of instructional language, lacking skills of comprehension of basic concepts, the motivation to read widely and self-learn are all in disarray. The Dons pointed out that the quality of assignments is still very lacking both in innovation and in depth of research. Usually the poor performing students quickly adopt the seductive alternatives to excel in school by offering sex and other after school deals for favourable grades. These are issues of academic integrity and it is what follows our graduates into the field.
I have since reflected on some of the details of our school curriculum. I concluded that what lacked is not materials. In any case, the education system has retained outdated materials in excess volumes. Students of Uganda have so much old and outdated materials that materials is not a problem. To me, what remains a major problem is the lack of a systematic design of the school experience to challenge and develop fully mental faculties of students, and to root that experience in our current challenges as a Nation.
For instance, the "Vocationalizing" of the school system would teach children how to lay bricks, partake in carpentry, draughtmanship etc. While I have no problem with that, I only think such is a small part of the curriculum. It should not be "the curriculum" and promoted as such. Students should be taught innovation and research, how to organize labour, how to improve on the quality and presentation of their products etc. Students have to be oriented to locally available resources within a familiar cultural context and learn to make good out of it, instead of waiting for Chinese products. After all, Science is only relevant if it propels human civilization. That civilization is not European civilization, but African civilization. Ugandan civilization.
There is something called liberating pedagogy. It strives to teach meanings, roots, causes etc. To unpack meanings embedded in complex concepts, such that the learner can, with assistance and/or on their own, explore critically, what it is, that they must learn. I am sure that we would be shocked if we were to conduct a test to see how many high school and university students can accurately tell what a "Capital city" is to a Nation. In liberating pedagogy, Paul Freire and others explicate the concept of “bunking” knowledge in students, and it is what this curriculae are designed for.
We teach about the defunct Tennessee River Authority with an obsession; the Bronx in New York that long gentrified; Lumbering in British Columbia where tree planting is more fascinating than the lumbering itself; the Dykes in Netherlands that shows human triumph over nature; Dairy farming in Copenhagen, or tourism in the Rhine River etc. We expose our students to all these comparative developments without a deliberate comparison with our own Owen falls dam which is now cracking; the deafforestation that is devastating Uganda’s environment; the upsurge of slum dwellings or collapsing buildings; or, the severe lack of decent modern housing in our urban centres; or the collapse of the public sector. Many important lessons such as the starvation in Karamoja in the face of excessive milk that goes to waste in the Cattle corridor, or huge Corn and Matooke production elsewhere, could provide a practical relevance. We have a rich eco-system for tourism in Uganda that are more relevant than a hybrid curriculum that glorifies things that matter little to us, locally. In other words, we have enough materials locally at home, to anchor our education system on, than basing our education on things that make our own inferior, non-essential, backward and condemned.
I am one of those privileged to have obtained education in Uganda and in Canada, and so are the many curricular experts in Uganda who are behind this suspended curriculum. The Canadian kids know very little about Uganda or Africa, other than the pitiful images they see on TV adverts. All school textbooks are about Canada and by Canadian writers - history, geography, science, politics, philosophy, language, presentations of intellectual properties, etc. You never find any materials in classroom that was written, or imported from abroad, unless such a material serves to strengthen economic relationship with say, USA. This practice is prevalent across the education system such that knowledge production is constantly challenged and evolving.
Further, students are taught fundamental competences of reasoning, critical thinking, problem solving, independent thinking, teamwork, research, accountability, public relations, innovation, risk assessment/management and community service. Students have to dedicate time in the community to graduate. Issues of plagiarism are introduced as early as in elementary school so that students grow through the academic system conscious of originality and the protection of intellectual property rights. Students are taught how to properly articulate (proper manner of presentation) and to integrate current evidence (within last 5 years) to enrich their learning and endevour.
It is in these realms, that our education system lacks enormously. As you can see, the new curriculum is designed to over load students and stuff them with eurocentric or outdated colonial materials. It is like the designers just moved colonial bricks from one corner to another. The way the course units are designed and clumped together, mislead students and teachers alike. Students need clarity, consistency, and liberty to choose the subjects that they want to study. The curriculum should be set such that it is goal and skills oriented, rather than workload oriented. A student knows that when s/he study X number of subjects, then s/he will graduate with desired sets of skills. This way, we do not sacrifice brilliant students who have no natural abilities in either ARTS or Sciences that the outdated UNEB system.
Lastly, a revised education system needs a competent teaching force capable of implementing it. Teachers in Uganda need proper university as a minimum education level, with equally rigorous preparations in matters of pedagogy, curriculum development, student development, and purposeful education. Teaching should not attract retarded and poor school performers who are shoved through teacher’s colleges as last career resort where they are entrenched in colonial system of education that we are moving away from. Many of the teachers in these schools do not know much about curriculum processes, enforcing academic discipline vs corporal punishments, and are not trained often to upgrade their knowledge. Given the low pay and adverse working conditions, teachers spend more time in Saccos and makeshift shops, than preparing for lessons and reading to expand their knowledge. We need to prepare comprehensively so that the education system caters to the teacher, students and parents- to assert its cultural relevance. The comprehensive school-community approach will give Uganda a great essence of an education system. As it is, we are running in circles.
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