URN.According to the new schools and another institution calendar, all primary and secondary schools will be re-opened on January 10 after close to two years of closure as one of the measures announced by the government to control the spread of COVID-19.
All learners will automatically be promoted to the next class when schools re-open on January 10, 2022, according to the Ministry of Education.
According to the new schools and another institution calendar, all primary and secondary schools will be re-opened on January 10 after close to two years of closure as one of the measures announced by the government to control the spread of COVID-19.
The Ministry of Education says that learners in primary one to three that last studied in March 2020 when schools were closed will be promoted to the next classes primary 2, 3 and 4. under the same arrangement, all children aged six who had not yet been enrolled into school before the lockdowns will be allowed to join primary one.
However, the Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Kataha Museveni says all learners who will be promoted will have to undergo remedial classes to be able to catch up.
Previously the education ministry wanted to carry out a Needs Assessment to understand what learners had covered so as to come up with a catch-up plan. However, Ismael Mulindwa, the Director of Basic Education says there’s no time for the needs assessment to be carried out.
He adds that curriculum experts at the ministry have guided that since our curriculum is in spiral form where knowledge learnt in the previous class is built on in the next class, it will be simple for teachers to recover lost time.
To aid in the recovery of lost time, the ministry will roll out an abridged curriculum, where core topics will be focussed on to ensure that a learner can cope up with learning in the next class. Grace Baguma, the Executive Director of the National Curriculum Development Centre says they are currently training headteachers on how to implement the abridged curriculum. Headteachers will then train teachers.
She added that for this to be successful, teachers will have to report to their respective stations of duty at least two weeks prior to the re-opening to enable them to develop schemes of work and teaching notes.
Dr Kedrace Turyagenda, the Director of Basic Education says there shouldn’t be fears that learners will miss content. She explains that the curriculum was designed to cover the entire level of education. Learners promoted from one class to another can be able to cover what they are supposed to learn by the time they sit national examinations.
Meanwhile, the minister urged schools to be mindful of parents when charging tuition. She said parents of children in Senior two who had paid tuition fully only for schools to close should not be charged money when schools re-open for the first term.
