UNIVERSITY OF KISUBI

FACULTY EDUCATION

COURSE UNIT COLLABORATIVE CURRICULUM

LECTURER’S NAME MRS FELISTUS APIO

NAME NKOYOYO EDWARD

REGISTRATION NUMBER 14BSCED0992

E-mail e.nkoyoyo@kbuc.ac.ug

Tev.no +256777169712

DATE OF SUBMISSION 8TH FEBRUARY 2016

TASK

ANALYSIS THE CURRENT REFORMED CURRICULUM OF THE LOWER SECONDARY

INTRODUCTION

curriculum refers to the lessons and academic content taught in a school or in a specific course

or program. In dictionaries, curriculum is often defined as the courses offered by a school, but it

is rarely used in such a general sense in schools. Depending on how broadly educators define or

employ the term, curriculum typically refers to the knowledge and skills students are expected to

learn, which includes the learning standards or learning objectives they are expected to meet; the

units and lessons that teachers teach; the assignments and projects given to students; the books,

materials, videos, presentations, and readings used in a course; and the tests, assessments, and

other methods used to evaluate student learning.

A new curriculum has been designed for S1 – S4. This will give learners the knowledge and

skills needed for success in modern society and lay a firm foundation for the world of work, self-

employment and further education.

The new curriculum for Lower Secondary will have eight (8) Learning Areas – Creative Arts,

Languages, Life Education, Mathematics, Religious Education, Science, Social Studies and

Technology and Enterprise. All Learning Areas will be compulsory at S1- S4.

The National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) has finalized the new O’ level

curriculum which will be launched in 2017.

The new curriculum has reduced the subjects taught in lower secondary form 43 to 8 core

learning areas. The new curriculum replaces the term ‘subjects’ with ‘learning areas’

Learning areas include Creative Arts, Mathematics, Science, Religious Education, Social

Studies, Technology and Enterprise, Life education, and Languages.  While Kiswahili and

English have been made compulsory.

Mathias Mulumba, the coordinator of the lower secondary reform program me said Kiswahili

will make Ugandans competitive in the fast integrating East African community.

Students will also choose an additional language out of the approved foreign and local dialects.

The optional languages include Luganda, Lugbara, Acholi, Langi, Lusoga, Runyankole-Rukiga,

Ateso, Latin, Arabic, French and German.

Importance of the current curriculum for the lower secondary

The new curriculum is intended to equip students with   practical skills in order to make them

productive for the dynamic market.

The new curriculum is intended to provide a holistic education which can promote critical

thinking, creativity, numeracy, interpersonal skills, professional mannerism and innovation

among students.

If the new curriculum is implemented, Students will find themselves in a new physical

environment. The classroom is new, most of the classmates are strangers, and the centre of the

teacher is a stranger too. The structured way of learning is also new. If, in addition to these

things, there is a rapid change in the language of interaction, then the situation can get quite

difficult. However, by using the learners’ home language, schools can help student find the way

the new environment and bridge their learning at school with the experience they bring from

home.

Second, by using the learners’ home language, learners are more likely to engage in the learning

process. The interactive learner-centered approach recommended by all educationalists thrives in

an environment where learners are adequately capable in the language of instruction. It allows

learners to make suggestions, ask questions, answer questions and create and communicate new

knowledge with interest hence gives learners confidence and helps to affirm their cultural

identity.

The new curriculum is intended to equip participate effectively in political, social, economic,

scientific and technological development. Thus effectively progress to the world of making a

living, work in paid employment and/or progress to Business, Technical, Vocational Education

and Training Institutions, Tertiary and Higher Education and Training.

If the new curriculum is implemented, a learner who knows how to read and write in one

language will develop reading and writing skills in a new language faster. The learner already

knows that letters represent sounds, the only new learning he or she needs is how the new

language ‘sounds’ its letters. In the same way, learners automatically transfer knowledge

acquired in one language to another language as soon as they have learned sufficient vocabulary

in the new language.

The new curriculum is intended to encourage learners to be independent, to explore the

environment beyond the classroom and to acquire a range of generic skills.\

Develops problem-solving skills, with the knowledge of science, students learn to think logically

and solve a problem. It is this problem-solving skill; it will enable a student to solve problems

that is to say Communications, medicine, transportation where by individuals have used their

knowledge of science to create real life applications hence Knowledge in this science subject

will also enables them to understand many other subjects better. 

If the new curriculum is implemented beneficiaries will leave school with integrity and honesty,

positive attitude to work and respect for human right, tolerance of difference as well as peaceful

and harmonious values.

If the new curriculum is implemented, the new curriculum is proposed to provide holistic

education that does not emphasis passing exams but one that helps students to be useful to

themselves and their society

If the new curriculum is implemented, Math specialist, Mathematics subject will now

concentrate on the core skills to enable learners develop basic skills to apply in day to day life for

effective participation in social and economic life.

Awareness about technology, learning the basics of how certain devices work can help a student

develop ideas of their own and invent new technology. Even the knowledge of how to use

telescopes, microscopes, and other devices in a laboratory can help him or her in examining

objects and determining differences between them hence fixing minor problems in electronic

objects in own home is possible when he or she have the basic knowledge about technology. 

Instills survival skills, Science helps a student learn about the various weather conditions, and

helps you distinguish between normal weather and dangerous weather. With this knowledge, a

student can stay prepared about natural disasters hence learning the characteristics of different

objects that you use in his or her day-to-day life

It keeps kids out of trouble. If the new curriculum is implemented, for schools worried about

disciplining children in the classroom, religion can help students with behaviors to change

through listening to the stories in Bible thus becoming a responsible student.

It helps students learn a bit more about them. If the new curriculum is implemented, Religious

classes will have a significant amount of benefits, including that they help kids learn more

internally about themselves and how they feel about God and religion. This helps them move

past those questions and identity crises.

If the new curriculum is implemented, the creative arts also provide learners with non-academic

benefits such as promoting self-esteem, motivation, aesthetic awareness, cultural exposure,

creativity, improved emotional expression, as well as social harmony and appreciation of

diversity.

However side, if the new curriculum is implemented, the following are negative side of the

new curriculum

Use of the learners’ home language at the start of school also lessens the burden on teachers,

especially where the teacher speaks the local language well where both the teacher and the

learner are non-native users of the language of instruction, the teacher struggles as much as the

learners, particularly at the start of education.

Another thing to consider is that only recently having religious teaching began to be so weak,

misconstrued and use to mislead the population that is to say I am referring to the multitude of

new religious. Also, in my opinion, there is also much less faith now than it the previous

centuries. Adding to this are the modern practices of religious studies and religious fanatics and

thus religion becomes a very complex and difficult to understand topic.

But when learners start school in a language that is still new to them, it leads to a teacher-

centered approach and reinforces passiveness and silence in classrooms. This in turn suppresses

young learners’ potential and liberty to express them freely. It dulls the enthusiasm of young

minds, inhibits their creativity, and makes the learning experience unpleasant.

Religion promotes magical thinking as a "solution" to moral and ethical problems.  That is, it

asserts that I am to believe such and so because "God said so." The conspicuous problem here is

that much of what is claimed as "Gods Holy Word" is actually just the historical musings of

powerful old men seeking more power over the serfs.

curriculum will develop the learning skills needed to ensure that all graduating students can think

critically and study effectively, that they possess the range of generic skills to be successful in

their personal and social lives, in making a living, and rendering them employable in the widest

sense.

Using IT involves using more expensive resources more frequently than in

Other curricular activities. However, there is insufficient hardware in many

Schools for pupils to have access whenever they need it, and pupils may

have to share computers even in IT subject studies

3.2. Availability of resources/materials

In the context of learning activities involving the making of artefacts (for example during art and

design or design and technology) there is strong evidence across a number of studies that

providing a wide range of appropriate materials, tools and other resources can stimulate

creativity

.