CURRICULUM
Education and sports minister Janet Museveni on Thursday appeared in Parliament to defend the new curriculum.
The government recently rolled out the new curriculum for lower secondary school, which started at the beginning of the school term.
However, MPs raised a number of issues, which prompted the Speaker to ask that the education minister appears in Parliament to explain it.
Although Parliament had suspended implementation of the curriculum, the Government insisted that it should be rolled out and the orientation of teachers on the curriculum started.
Parliament on Thursday finally gave greenlight to the implementation of the new lower secondary school education curriculum, after explanations given by the minister for education and sports Janet Museveni.
As early as 2:00 pm, Mrs. Museveni was already in the Parliament chambers prepared to present her statement in Thursday’s plenary sitting which started at about 2:55pm.
The Minister, who is also the First Lady, first apologised for not having presented the statement on Tuesday since it was on the Tuesday order paper. She explained that the mishap arose from the communication from the Clerk to Parliament, which indicated that she was required to present the statement on Thursday.
The minister explained that after Parliament had on February 4, 2020, passed a resolution calling for the halting of the implementation, the education ministry took the matter to the cabinet to provide guidance.
“We couldn’t halt without getting guidance from the cabinet. After discussions, the cabinet guided that we shouldn’t halt the implementation. We were also advised to continue involving the stakeholders as we implement,” Kataha explained.
As the minister was still explaining, Opposition Chief Whip Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda interrupted her with a procedural point, arguing that the minister was giving justification for the new curriculum instead of giving steps taken in implementing the Parliament resolution.
But the Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, guided that the members allow the minister to present her statement because it was too early to determine the content of what she planned to say.
The minister explained that the new curriculum should have been implemented last year but delayed partly due to financial constraints and the need for undertaking enough preparations.