Curriculum implementation and program management

Table of contents

CHAPTER ONE. SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING.

CHAPTER TWO ROLE OF SCHOOL POLICY IN EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT.

CHAPTER THREE CURRICULUM REFORM AND INNOVATIONS IN UGANDA

CHAPTER FOUR. THE ROLE OF A LEARNER AND A TEACHER

CHAPTER FIVE. TWENTY CHRONIC CHALLENGES OF UPE SCHOOLS IN UGANDA.

CHAPTER SIX RESOURCES NEEDED FOR CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION.

CHAPTER SEVEN CREATING A SUPPORTIVE SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT FOR CURRICULUM CHANGE

CHAPTER EIGHT CONSELING AND GUIDANCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS.

CHAPTER NINE TEACHING ABOUT HIV/AIDS.

CHAPTER NINE. RECOMMENDATIONS.

References.

Abstract

This book presents the brief explanation of planning and management during curriculum planning and program implementation, resources necessary, curriculum reform and innovations, counseling and guidance and education for all in Uganda. It examines the role of various partners in the school environment. Curriculum implementation in schools through policy formulation through planned activities is the core and essential element that creates school business upon which schools’ stakeholders interact for the purpose of achieving a common goal of educating the people of any society. There is need to catch up with the changing needs of institutions as well as coping with meeting the challenge of individual reforms that looks a daunting task, all of them to be achieved within a limited time frame presents a management challenge that thus requires planning.

Acknowledgement.

I want to thank my work colleagues at various stations for their contributions towards this book. Great thanks towards my wife Kate Akampurira and children Agatha, Daisy and Esther for their support. Special thanks to my parents Mr. and Mrs. Kururagire Fred for they did what they could to support my education. May the almighty God reward you abundantly.

My siblings Benjamin, Gregory, Stanley, Deborah, Salome and my late brother Gordon have contributed a great deal towards my endeavors in all ways.

Dedication.

This book is dedicated to all my teachers at all levels.

CHAPTER ONE. SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING.

Adesina ( 1990) defines planning as a way of projecting our intentions, that is, a method of deciding what we want to accomplish. Ejiogu (1990) holds that to plan, means to project, to forecast, design or make or chart our course. From these views it can be emphasized that planning refers to the act of deciding in advance what will be done, how and when it will be done. It therefore involves setting objectives and determining what should be done to achieve the set objectives within any organisation. Therefore planning aims at establishing goals and objectives of the school in the educational system.

Educational Planning. This can be defined as the process of setting out in advance, procedures, strategies, policies, programs and standards through which the organizational goals can be achieved.

School development planning is an important approach in primary and secondary schools that is aimed at that explains and maintains the students welfare, management structures and approaches, resources and finances of the school, monitoring and evaluation for proper accountability, so as to develop a clear and coherent manner for effective and efficient systems.

The purpose of this book on School- based management systems is to equip all the stakeholders and School Management organs to have good practice and quality service delivery within whole school development in an efficient manner.

This course also shares with the staff members on some of the management issues which need to be addressed so as to provide care and support in the teaching and learning process where teachers and leaners interact for a mutual benefit.

It is important to note that quality education is supported by sound management practices through a school system. All planning and management within the school should be a collaborative effort. This shows that it should involve all stakeholders in a context in which the curriculum plays a central role. The focus of this document is to earmark the management issues which need to be addressed so that they support what happens in the entire school system. The core issues at school level such as integration of better approaches, increased learner performance, quality teaching and learning and a healthy school environment and fulfilling overall school aims and objectives rely strongly on good management plans and practices. The system to achieve all the above mentioned will depend on the following.

1 -Planning and managing curriculum development and delivery
2 -Planning quality monitoring processes and procedures
3 -Why do we need to plan for and manage curriculum development and delivery?
4 -Who is involved in the planning and management process in a school?
5 -What are the different levels at which management and planning take place?

In the managerial process, planning is deciding what is to be done and how it will be done. It entails a broad process of determining the school’s direction as translated by the school aims and objectives upon which educational activities are dependent.

Planning occupies an important position that may involve short, medium or long term approaches that should be reflected in the school development plan. It bears in mind the available resources for effectiveness, efficiency and to answer all practical questions that harmonize school life.

Planning utilizes all the information available and also gathered through reviewing what has been experienced and this helps to make a forecast for the whole development process.

Planning can be examined under the following aspects;

- The problems encountered in planning.
- Different types and levels of planning.
- The sequence of planning.
- Criteria for effective planning.

Henri Fayol defines management as “ to forecast and to plan, to organize, to command, to coordinate and to control. Brech defines management as a social process which constitutes planning, controlling, coordination and motivation. Koontz and O’ Donnel define management as an operational process initially dissected and approached by analyzing the management functions. Management refers to a set of activities directed with an organization’s resources with the aim of achieving organizational objectives in an efficient and effective manner (Griffin, 2000). The activities set include planning and decision making, leading and controlling all the activities within an organization. The resources in this case include human, financial, physical and information resources.

Ministry of Education, Science Technology, and Sports through its departments and agencies plays a very important role in the planning and management process of a school. It issues out policies and guidelines that directs the planning process in the school. National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) is one of the agencies under the Ministry of education which is charged with the responsibility of planning, designing and managing curriculum in Uganda. It is also responsible for curriculum reform at primary and secondary levels. There is also the Instructional Materials unit; and the Guidance and Counseling departments, which also contribute a lot in planning and management. The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) is another agency that is responsible for the assessment and evaluation for the school or any other school’s achievement. It also plays an advisory role on the methods of delivery and instructional materials to be used.

1.1.Problems of planning in education.

Many of the problems encountered are political, social and economic depending on the dynamics of society in which the school is located. Political problems arise mainly when interests of individuals in the organization takes precedence over the organizational goals. The objectives of the organization must be very clear to avoid haphazard plans that normally meet a lot of difficulties in implementation. A more rational approach would be to integrate both the individual and organizational objectives through diverse reviews in formal planning.

Criteria for effective planning.

- Planners at the institutional level should bear in mind the following while planning.
- The necessary information from the reliable sources.
- There should be clear and precise channels of communication
- Staff of the organization. This should be reviewed at all levels and these should be well familiarized to the vision, mission, aims and objectives of the organization.
- The level of planning should be clear to all stakeholders especially those in top management positions.
- Monitoring and evaluation should be catered for right away from the planning stage.

1.2. The nature and purpose of the school development plans.

A school development plan provides a basis through which the mission, aims and objectives of an organization through reviews and prioritization of the school’s activities in the context of national and local context. This provides strategic opportunities for efficient and effective management of the school. A development plan helps managers of he school to achieve realistic results in regard to the aims and objectives of the school.

A development plan helps allows stakeholders to have a better reflection of the school activities and functions in a coherent manner. This helps to prioritize on how to utilize the scarce resources. The core elements that are planned for include;

- Curriculum and curriculum development.
- Pupil welfare and pastoral care.
- Human resources.
- Physical resources.
- Financial resources.
- Management structures and approaches.

The school development plan is a coherent document that provides direction to the school through which proper decision making as a matter of priority. It is equally important to have the policy effectively implemented so that school aims and objectives can be translated into an effective education.

Why do we need to plan for and manage curriculum development and delivery?

It is important to do the planning as well as doing proper management of curriculum development so as to realize curriculum goals because of the following reasons:

- There is need to have proper enhancement between teachers and learners in the classroom.
- It helps to cope with new technology changes.
- It makes the teacher to be systematic in delivery.
- It helps to make the curriculum relevant to the needs of the learner and the society as a whole.
- There is need to ensure effective use of curriculum resources so as to enhance maximum productivity in school.
- Helps to give learners the appropriate/ relevant content with the application of the learner’s environment in order to make learning real.
- It helps to ensure that the set goals and objectives are achieved.
- It enables effective/ proper assessment and evaluation of the curriculum.

SCHOOL MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT PLAN.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Case study.

A FIVE YEAR DEVELOPMENT PLAN OF KABALE PENTAGON SCHOOL. KABALE PENTAGON SCHOOL P.O.BOX 909 KABALE UGANDA.

Tel. contact +256782328403

Background.

Kabale Pentagon school is a private day and boarding secondary school. It educates both boys and girls. It is an O’ (ordinary) Level and A’ (advanced) level school located along Kabale- Kisoro road in Kabale Municipality in Western Uganda.

It was started by a group of teachers under an association Kabale United Association (KAUTA) in 2012 with 49 students. It was later licensed and registered by the Ministry of Education in 2013. It was given a UNEB (Uganda National Examinations Board) in 2015. The school today has an enrollment of 325 students and 34 workers.

The school’s core values are

1 We strive to value each student and look for the best in them.
2 We strive to respect each member of the school, community and everyone is encouraged to take responsibility and achieve their potential.
3 We strive to be an open, welcoming and responsible school with clear lines of communication.
4 We strive to ensure that the values of integrity, courtesy, trust and care to every aspect of school life and treat others as they wish to be treated.
5 We strive to make the school an extension of the homes and local community.

Institutional Tennet.

Vision: To provide affordable, holistic Education for community Development.

Mission: To develop positive morals, academic excellence, and patriotism in young generation for future sustainability.

Moto. See Far Act Now.

Objectives.

1 To provide affordable but quality education.
2 To provide employment to the community.
3 To instill discipline among the students.
4 To tap and develop students’ individual talents.

School activities.

1 Teaching and learning.

2 Co- curricular activities.

- Games.
- Debates.
- Drama.
- Clubs.

Achievements.

1 Construction of a 6 stance latrine.
2 Construction of a main Hall.
3 Improvement in Academics.
4 Introduction of information Technology by William Sixth Form in UK.
5 Improved discipline among staff and students.

Stakeholders.

1 Students.
2 Teachers.
3 Parents.
4 Government of the Republic of Uganda.
5 Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB).
6 National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC).
7 Uganda National Teachers Union (UNATU).
8 Uganda National Students Association (UNSA).

Challenges.

1 High cost of renting the premises on which the school operates.
2 Inadequate infrastructure like classrooms, laboratories and libraries.
3 Little income, students pay little money for maintenance costs.
4 Parents inability to meet their obligations and full participation in school programs.
5 Water shortage due intermittent nature of Uganda National Water supply.
6 Unreliable hydro- electric power.
7 Low student enrolment that leads to a high unit cost.

Future plans.

- Acquiring land on which to construct the school.
- Renovation of the classrooms.
- Creating and gazetting green belts and pathways.
- Construction of a six stance toilet.
- Making more furniture for students.
- Buying more computers.
- Buying more text books.
- Improving discipline.
- Improving academic performance.

SWOT ANALYSIS.

Strengths.

- Located at the centre of Kabale Town.
- Enough books for O’ Level.
- Supportive community.
- Enough and experienced teachers.
- Both hydro electricity and standby generator.
- Equipped science rooms.
- External link with William Sixth form and Warriner School in UK.

Weaknesses.

- School still on rented premises.
- Inadequate A’ Level text books.
- No funding from government.
- Low staff salaries.
- Inadequate staff accommodation.

Opportunities.

- A big growing population which is a source of students.
- Upgrading Kabale- Kisoro road into a tarmac road.
- Many up- coming primary schools which are a source of students.

Threats.

- Upcoming private secondary schools in the Municipality.
- High rate of poverty among the people around the school.
- A growing slum near the school.

Goals.

1 To improve academic performance.
2 To inculcate a sense of discipline and self- respect among students.
3 To create a good teaching and learning environment.

Goal one: To improve academic performance at Uganda Certificate of Education.

Objective one: To reduce percentage of students passing in Division U (Ungraded).

Activities.

- Remedial teaching.
- Extra lessons.
- Discussions and seminars.
- Recruitment of more science teachers.
- Promoting clubs such as debates and scouts clubs.

Indicators: Reduced percentages of students passing in division U.

Goal Two. To provide boarding facilities for boys at school.

Objective : To accommodate at least 250 boys by the year 2021.

Activities.

- Construction of two dormitories.
- Fencing the school with strong materials.
- Purchase of beds.
- Recruitment of patron.

Indicator: To accommodate at least 250 boys accommodated at school.

Goal Three: To promote games and sports.

Objective. To involve and train students in different games and sports.

Activities.

- Volley ball.
- Foot ball.
- Net ball.
- Athletics.
- Badminton.

Indicators: Sports equipment and facilities in school, internal and external competitions.

Goal Four: Introducing teaching of ICT.

Objective. To have ICT taught from Senior one.

Activities;

- Procuring computers.
- Recruitment of teachers for ICT.
- Constructing ICT laboratory.

Indicators. ICT laboratory in place, Teachers for ICT.

Goal five. To improve discipline in school.

Objective. To promote discipline in school

To promote morals, ethics and general discipline.

Activities.

- Guidance and counseling.

- Corrective punishments.

- Caution.

Indicator. A well disciplined school.

Goal six. Library Development.

Objective. To acquire enough and essential textbooks.

- Purchase of more books.

- Construction of a library.

- Recruitment of a librarian.

Goal seven. Increasing school furniture.

Objective. To have increased stock of school furniture.

Activities.

§ Purchase of desks, seats, chairs, tables and beds.

Indicators. School furniture in place.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

BOG=Board of Governors; PDU=Procurement and disposal unit;

PTA=Parents Teachers Association. DOS=Director of Studies.

Planning is a continuous and on- going process of reviewing, forecasting budgeting and implementation. The school development plan constitutes new developments as well as maintaining what was being worked upon and was not brought to completion. This makes planning to be a continuous cycle that integrates the new and existing activities as the majority of the existing activities need to be maintained.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

The school governors ensures that the school plan is effectively drawn and implemented.

When you consider the role of stakeholders while constructing and operating school development plans, one has to put in mind who is responsible for what in terms of;

- Policy generation.
- Policy approval.
- Policy implementation.
- Policy administration.

It important to consider the way in which the role of development partners can be determined in the development process with the alternative courses of action and the decision making process is made on the basis of prioritization both in the short run and long- run.

Proper policy implementation requires efficient administration for a smooth development planning process.

1.3. Weaknesses of Uganda’s current curriculum at secondary and primary school level.

Curriculum is the total sum of experiences learners undergo when they are at school. In other words, the curriculum is the vehicle that education uses for vital instrument for social education mobility at personal level and as an instrument for transformation of society. Education has therefore become one of the most powerful weapons for reducing poverty and inequality in modern societies (Abdul Kareem,1997). It is also used for laying the foundation for sustainable growth and development of any nation. Primary and secondary education is the core of development and progress in modern societies. They are the levels of education that develop the individual capacity to read, write and examine issues that concerns man’s survival. In other words, it helps to eradicate illiteracy, which is one of the causes of poverty. Thus secondary and primary education is available almost in all systems of education around the world though different approaches are used. This explains why primary and secondary education is the largest sub- sector of any education system and offers the unique opportunity to contribute to the transformation of societies through the education of young ones (Onah, 1998).

According to (Oghuvbu, 2011) curriculum is the summation of systematically planned process of teaching and learning based on the aims and objectives of the educational policy of any country. It is made up of academic or subject based curriculum and non- academic or extra curricular programs. The primary and secondary schools’ curriculum module is an academic curriculum based on all subjects designed for the primary school level.

The structure of education in Uganda has a structure of 7 years of primary education, 6 years of secondary education (composed of 4 years of ordinary level and 2 years of advanced level), and 3- 5 years of tertiary education. The new era in the history of primary and secondary education in Uganda was opened in 1997 and 2007 with the establishment of the Universal Primary Education (UPE) and Universal Secondary Education respectively. This made primary education the sole responsibility of government and parents in educating children. Primary school became the base of Uganda’s educational system when the national policy on education system is built upon it.

Curriculum is a human educational enterprise in which people attempt to do something in a purposeful and thoughtful way.

(Oghubu, 2011), opined that the current primary school curriculum is the result of many reforms that are trying to make education relevant to the people of Uganda. Therefore the government of Uganda has good intention to fulfill the primary and secondary education purpose as stated in the education White Paper 1992. But there is evidence that to some extent education system has failed in achieving the intended objectives due to weaknesses that exist in curriculum implementation.

The management of primary and secondary curriculum in Uganda has experienced serious problems due to the existing weaknesses in the curriculum. The introduction of Universal Primary Education (UPE) nationwide in 1997 and Universal Secondary Education in 2007 experienced problems of under- estimation of about 30% of the turn up number of the children enrolment, acute shortage of classroom space, shortage of teachers and equipment. It has indicated that primary and secondary education are under- funded and therefore most of the schools funded by government are in poor state. This may not be divorced from neglect and lack of maintenance as a result of economic depression.

In most parts of the country, especially primary schools in rural areas, pupils still attend their classes either under the trees or in ramshackle classrooms. The inability of government to effectively run primary schools has made teachers to completely fail to implement the curriculum.

In line with the above, (Nwaogu, 1990) teaching and learning go on smoothly, factors other than teachers and pupil play a very important role. The ecology of the classroom cannot therefore be overemphasized. Ecology of the classroom according to Nwaogu refers to the environment of people, that is, the curriculum, actual teaching, classroom management, classroom climate (noisy or quiet) and the physical condition of the classroom (dark or ventilated, hard floor, arrangement of seats) and other related factors.

It is important to note that many primary and secondary schools are experiencing acute shortage of infrastructure, non- payment of teachers’ salaries and security problems. Some primary schools have not enough classrooms and furniture to the extent that classes are held under shades of trees in the compound. Some pupils carry home their seats to and from to school on a daily basis. The materials needed to facilitate the teaching process are at times not enough or not available. The teachers are no longer committed to their jobs because they are not well paid. It is obvious that unless these teachers are provided with the drive that would energize them or the tools needed, that is proper inputs, their best could not be tapped or attained and the accomplishment of educational goals would be difficult.

More to this, (Nwaogu,1990) postulated that many primary and secondary schools especially those located in rural areas have no access to health facilities. Hospitals and health centres are not within walking distances. Within the school themselves, there are no first aid boxes and trained personnel to offer pupils emergency relief in cases of minor problems. Therefore teachers and students get sick and seek medical care by travelling long distances.

Moreover it is a truism that in the realization of the fact that unequal access to educational opportunity is one of the strongest correlates to social inequality, government has embarked on massive expansion of access to primary and secondary education. UPE and USE programs were aimed at making basic education accessible to all children of school age irrespective of their social, economic, culture or geographical backgrounds. As one would expect, there has been a corresponding expansion of secondary and tertiary education.

However the quality of primary education has not kept abreast of the expansion in enrolments across the country. Although this, according to UNESCO (2001) continues to be a global concern, yet it is the general belief that the competence of the teacher is central to the education of children. In a way therefore, what constitutes competence in teaching is intimately connected with the type of teacher education programs available for preparing primary and secondary curriculum. In addition, the current curriculum does not adequately address the emerging advancement in technology. There is however some attempt made by government to equip rural secondary schools with some computers though this has again hit the scenario of power sources.

More so it is worthy to note that the national policy on education prescribes that the teacher- pupil ratio is high. In Uganda, the classrooms are overcrowded and in some instances schools have operated with teacher pupil ratio that is not manageable. A program of classroom building, to support the implementation of a scheme for Universal Primary and Secondary education was either never developed or if it was, it was not successfully implemented which leads to challenges in curriculum implementation.

The funding has also bedeviled the implementation of the primary and secondary school curriculum in Uganda. There is no gainsaying that despite the increase in the number of primary and secondary schools government in funding this level of education. When UPE was introduced by the government, there has been inadequate funding and poor management.

The system emphasizes memorial learning rather than thinking, imitation originally and conformity than initiative. This is detrimental to a developing country. The primary and secondary school system should foster Ugandan language, dresses, songs, dances and cultural heritage. Any educational system that undermines the significance and importance of the traditional background is not good enough for Uganda. Education in Japan is Japanese, education in Russia is Russian, and education in America is American. But one tempted to ask what education in Uganda. The answer of course is not far- fetched British or American oriented. In other words our curriculum is alien.

In addition both secondary and primary education is curriculum oriented and qualification fixed. It is more examination oriented and therefore academic centred other than skills, values and attitudes. This causes the Uganda curriculum to be more theoretical than practical as the results it produces are job seekers than creators.

One of the weaknesses of primary education is that it caters for a small percentage of the population who have the opportunity to continue with the secondary education. The biggest percentage drop out and the content attained at school is not out rightly applied in society

Both primary and secondary school curriculum are theoretical. They are overloaded with many academic areas that do not seem very relevant to society. It shows that the curriculum lacks curriculum philosophy and therefore no designed goals to reflect the educational philosophy. . Curriculum content is not necessarily relevant to the society needs and therefore do not match with the learners’ real life situations.

In the current primary and secondary curriculum, have some thematic areas that do not have reference materials. Even those that are provided by government do not come in time. Therefore the entire education system has failed to develop practical skills and teachers have resorted to training students to pass academic examinations and society has synonymously welcomed embraced it. Implementation of curriculum at these levels is faced with challenges of transition from primary to secondary level. The curricular of both primary and secondary are to a large extent different and therefore it is a bit difficult to switch to the new curricular at secondary. There are four major core subjects taught at primary level compared to sixteen disciplines handled at secondary level.

The curriculum has failed to enable students to acquire permanent functional and developmental literacy, numeracy and communication skills in Kiswahili, and local languages as well as English. In addition it does not it does not cater for pupils and students with special needs. Most of the activities done do not cater for children with learning impairment in most schools and in most parts of the country.

There is a tendency to ignore co- curricular activities in favor of academics at both secondary and primary levels. As curriculum calls for total development (holistic development), this is not being done whereby schools aim at getting super grades in academic disciplines. Such tendencies has always led to “ killing” of the learners talents which would otherwise be exploited when co- curricular activities are emphasized during the teaching process. It is within the goals of education that co- curricular activities be planned for while planning for school resources.

In the implementation of the school curriculum in Uganda today, there is limited inspection by the concerned parties. This is worse with secondary schools. As it always said “ If you do not inspect, do not expect” , failure to do effective inspection has cost a lot the curriculum implementation strategy. There is need by government to do a little more in facilitating the supervisory bodies to do the monitoring and inspection.

CURRICULUM MENU.

Primary Education.

- English.
- Social Studies.
- Mathematics.

- Science.

Secondary Education

Group 1 (Knowledge Extension).

- English Language.
- Mathematics.
- Chemistry.
- Physics.
- Biology.
- Geography.
- History.

These seven subjects are compulsory from S.1- S.4.

Group 2 (Languages).

- Kiswahili.
- Luganda.
- Luo.
- Runyakitara.
- Any other language.

Group 3 (Value and Culture).

- Religious Education.
- Literature in English.
- Art and Craft.

Group 4 (Practical Subjects).

- Agriculture.
- Business studies ( shorthand, accounts, office practice, commerce, entrepreneurship skills)
- Home Economics.

Group 5 ( Technical Subjects).

- Technical drawing.
- Wood Work/Metal Work
- Electricity and Electronics.

CHAPTER TWO ROLE OF SCHOOL POLICY IN EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT.

A policy can be taken to be a statement of aims and objectives that can be implemented as procedure by any institution and therefore represents an ideal behavior in any society. It is a deliberate system of principles to guide activities and programs in society so as to achieve rational outcomes. Policies are made at individual, instructional, organizational and national levels.

At school level, policies are generally adopted by the Board of Governors or School Management Committee within an organization whereas procedures would be designed and adopted by senior executive officers. Policies can assist in both objective and subjective decision making to achieve rational outcomes.

A school is a place where there is a composition of learners and instructors through which learning and teaching take place. School policies and their significance in educational management include the following;

Human Resource Management Policy. Human resource is a crucial component of any organization. It is therefore important for every school to take care of the following aspects of human resource: recruitment, induction, appraisal, job rotation, promotions, benefits, and rewards and disciplinary measures. If this policy is properly institutionalized, then it will improve on the efficiency and productivity of human resource.

Safety and Security Policy. This is meant to keep people and property in school out of danger. The school managers put in place a number of measures that promote safety and security of the whole environment. Some of these measures include; fencing the institution and provision of one entry, fire extinguishers, installation of lightening conductors, and employment of security guards among other measures. This is a very important sensitive policy in school.

Health and Sanitation Policy. This entails guidelines concerning maintaining a clean and habitable environment to ensure safer life for all the people in the organization. These include; routine classroom cleaning, compound clearing, separation of latrines boys from girls, provision of first aid box, routine medical check- ups of students, proper placement of sanitary towels, provision of safe water for drinking among others.

Co- curricular Policy. This policy makes a provision of games, clubs and societies. At the institution level every student should belong to at least one of the clubs in school. These clubs have activities which include; music, dance and drama, Physical Education, debate, Scripture Union, patriotism. These activities break the monotony of class work and this is where the talents of learners are exploited.

Child Protection Policy. This is where children irrespective tribe, race, home background, nationality, color, are protected against any form threat or physical violence such as kidnapping, burning, rape and defilement, denial of food or medicine. All children

Food Policy. Apparently in schools this refers to the right of every child to feed on adequate and well balanced diet at the right moment. This brings good health to children who are mentally ready to perform well academically.

Dressing Code Policy. Every institution designs the way in which its children should appear in terms of school uniform. All schools make students clad in school uniform that is properly worn at the right time and in the right place. School uniform is a sign of identity and it carries with it certain positive traits that are inherent from time to time.

Religious Policy. This policy entails religious values and religious tolerance. The policy should be so accommodative and this will promote peaceful co- existence and harmonious relationships amongst members of the institution and the surrounding community. It is a common practice of conducting morning prayers every morning and this helps to instill moral values in both pupils and staff.

Environment conservation Policy. Under this policy staff and children collectively support environment conservation through participating in tree planting around the school and other environment conservation campaigns. This is meant to harness nature around school.

Mode of assessment Policy. Most schools have adopted three sets of examinations in a term. These are beginning of term, middle of the term and end of the term examinations. Others go ahead to give holiday package. The major purpose is to avoid redundancy and idleness. This helps learners to go over the learnt material again and again which encourages mastery of content.

General Assemblies Policy. Assemblies are important in school setting. They are used as platforms for disseminating weekly programs, and any other policy issues in regard to teaching and learning. This is done by staff and administration, prefects and external experts in different fields of knowledge. It encourages clear communication and learners are able to exercise leadership skills. There is maintenance of values, culture, masterly of school anthem, school anthem East African anthem which improves on sense of belonging and identity.

Time management Policy. Timekeeping is one of cherished virtues world over. Schools insist on time keeping for both learners teachers and other members of staff. Most schools begin at 8.00 am with morning assembly prayers and general cleaning. The significance of this is to allow teachers finish syllabus in time as well as keeping the environment clean.

Students/ Pupils leaders’ Policy. All schools are supposed to have prefectural body and school council. This is in line with promoting democracy and good governance where students/pupils participate in electing their leaders. These leaders acts as a bridge between the students body and the school administration. They act as a voice of the students to the school administration and take feedback to the learners and this promotes school stability and good performance.

School attendance Policy. This is where schools should ensure a high daily attendance, possibly 100% because class attendance increases chances of academic success. Schools use daily attendance registers and noticeboard attendance displays as a means to improve daily attendance.

School Visitation days Policy. This mostly applies to schools with boarding facilities. It involves parents visiting their children and take the advantage of interacting with teachers for the purpose of improving discipline and academic performance of the learners.

Corporal punishment, teasing and bullying Policy. In this case teachers and prefects are notified to use friendly and alternative punishments instead of corporal punishments. Students are also sensitized not to tease or bully their friends as these may lead to torture in schools.

Admissions Policy. Schools set promotional pass mark so as to maintain good academic performance standards and this encourages learners to work hard and pass.

Schedule of meetings Policy. Schools are supposed to convene various meetings at the start of every term such as staff meetings, prefects meetings, management meetings such as board of governors meetings, and Parents Teachers Association (PTA) meetings. These meetings are meant to lay out strategies for a new term, identify school needs and new developments, detect and predict the likely challenges in the new term and incorporate them in a school plan. This policy improves problem solving since ideas of all stakeholders are adopted.

Home work and holiday package Policy. This demands teachers to assign homework that is meaningful, reasonable and purposeful in nature. It also compels learners to do a given set of assignments and this encourages hard work through private study. This helps to reduce student redundancy during holidays as they try to do academic packages to present at school at the beginning of the ter.

School Tenate Policy. This is concerned with establishment of school vision, mission, school anthem and core values. These should be in line with the institutional goals and national goals of education.

Cell Phone Policy. Much as communication is very important in society, schools have come up with policies regulating phone possessions in school by the students as phones may distract them in their daily activities.

Special needs and inclusive education Policy. This policy encourages the participation and competition of schooling by persons with disabilities or special learning needs. It allows participation and competition of people with physical and mental disabilities. This calls for participation and management of Special Needs Education program.

Gender Policy. The policy of gender in education guides all education stakeholders in planning, resource allocation and implementation with a gender consideration. It encourages gender equity in planning, budgeting, resource allocation and specifying roles and responsibilities of key education stakeholders. It enforces gender equity in all mainstreaming and eliminates gender disparities in education sector in terms of enrolment, performance, achievement, transition, retention, completion and learning outcomes.

Government policies in Primary Education in Uganda.

The government has put a number of policies to guide Universal Primary Education. These include the following;

UPE policy (2007). This policy targets all school going children to attain free primary education in Uganda. It aims at addressing challenges of human resource such as high illiteracy and skill development in the country. Since its inception in 1997, more than eight million children are in schools under UPE of which the majority of the learners are from families that are low income social economic status. The policy is guided by a number of objectives some of which include;

To establish, provide and maintain quality education as a basis for promoting the necessary human resource development.

To transform society in a fundamental and positive way and to provide the minimum necessary facilities and resources to enable every child to enter and remain in school until the primary cycle of education is completed among others.

The policy puts further emphasis on schools management with aspects on various areas, for example official school days and hours in primary schools as 8.00am- 4.30pmm and Monday to Friday respectively.

Coaching is prohibited while remedial teaching is highly encouraged.

Corporal punishment is prohibited as it threatens and leads to drop outs thus frustrating the efforts of the program.

No head teacher is expected to levy any charges unless the charges are approved by the Ministry of Education.

Repetition of classes is discouraged and therefore pupils should not be discontinued from schooling or forced to repeat classes purely on grounds of poor academic performance.

The policy defines the roles of key players in the implementation of UPE ranging from the mother Ministry of education, that is charged with training deployment and professional development of teachers to the legislative arm of governance, district leaders, sub county chiefs, District or Municipality Education department and inspectorate, centre coordinating tutors, head teachers, teachers, pupils, parents/community, the Civic society, Non- Governmental organisations and mass media. All these have a role to play for the success of the program.

Equitable Access Policy. This is a key educational sector policy that is meant for both the rural and urban in Uganda. It entails providing equitable access to affordable and quality education to all Ugandans, propelling the nation towards achieving the goals of Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP). This is meant towards commitment to achieve Education For All (EFA) and Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, providing relevant education and enhancing efficiency and effectiveness.

In order to strengthen partnership in the Education sector, more resources have been allocated through the UPE program to lower educational public so as to enhance quality of access between boys and girls.

Local Language Policy (2007). This policy is meant to have thematic curriculum implemented in lower primary. The curriculum is delivered using mother tongues as languages of instruction. Teachers’ resource books have been developed in nine local languages to help teachers to handle thematic curriculum at this level. Teachers have also undergone professional training and workshops to implement this new policy. There has also been training like in Early Grade Reading and Arithmetic (EGRA) to help the acquire skills to implement the policy.

Gender in Education Policy (2010). This policy encourages gender equity in all aspects and eliminates gender disparities in the education sector. It guides all the education stakeholders in planning, resource allocation and implementation to address some of the gender bottlenecks at all levels. It emphasizes gender mainstreaming in planning, resource allocation and budgeting so as to promote the provision of relevant knowledge and skills equally to males and females for harmonious national development. It is therefore imperative to eliminate gender disparities by all stakeholders in order to ensure gender responsiveness in all activities of management.

It also calls for special facilities for the girl child such as wash rooms ( child friendly school), banning undesirable cultural practices of forced and early marriages for girls to increase chances of girls going and keeping in school.

Basic Education Policy for Educationally Disadvantaged Children (2006). This is meant to address the rights of the educationally disadvantaged children. It was introduced in 2006 to cater for children who drop out of school because of the rigidity nature of the formal schooling system. This policy is a good policy but has unfortunately remained on paper.

The Special Needs and Inclusive Education Policy. (2011). This policy enhances the participation and competition of children with learning difficulties and special needs. This was specifically meant to increase enrolment, participation and completion of schooling by persons with learning difficulties and special needs. It was also meant to strengthen and systematize initiatives and programs on Special Needs Education as well as enhancing participation of stakeholders in the management and implementation Special Needs Education programs in Uganda.

The Education Sector HIV and AIDS work place Policy (2006). This policy provides procedure and framework for dealing with HIV/AIDS in the Education sector. The policy mainly promotes a consequent and equitable approach to the prevention of HIV/AIDS transmission among employees. This is meant to ensure increased access to quality HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment and care services, support and elimination of all forms of stigma and discrimination in the education sector.

Physical Education and Sports Policy (2005). This helps to identify talents in games and sports among children and youth. It aims at improving planning, management and coordination of education and sports at school, district and national level. The policy has enhanced retention and completion rates where positive values and skills have been acquired through further training and specialization. Most schools have to participate in Music, dance and drama, essay writing competition and sports activities every year and this improves talent development and promotion of inclusion of the marginalized groups of children in the education system.

Primary Education Reform Program. In 1991 Government designed the Primary Education Reform Program (PERP) to address issues of declining quality of basic education. It focused on three major aspects of increasing access to improving school management and instructional quality, quality learning opportunities, strengthening planning and improving management and implementation.

The policy of liberalization of education. Following the recommendations of Prof. Kajubi in the Government White Paper, there was need for opening space for private- public partnership in the provision of education at all levels. Initiatives by the public and private sector, civil society and cross partnerships among and between sectors have led to better education service provision.

Curriculum reform policy. The government has instituted National Curriculum Development Centre

and this organ has regularized the curriculum reform policy. It has implemented the policy of Africanisation of Educational content to get rid of Colonial Education and in response to Mazrui (1978), regards neo- colonial cultural dependency as a threat to Africans. Psychological autonomy and and sovereignty and reports that “ Very few educated Africans are even aware that they are also in cultural bondage. All educated Africans are ….. are still cultural captives of the West.

CHAPTER THREE CURRICULUM REFORM AND INNOVATIONS IN UGANDA

Education reforms are actions or recommendations by those in authorities that are intended to make education better or put right ant faults or errors in the provision of education.

Brasvasky a(2003) defines change as an essential characteristic of life in the co- temporally world. The changes affecting the various spheres of social life are increasingly rapid and intertwined.

Curriculum change id deemed necessary when existing content, methods and structures of school education do not seem to be responding to new social demand resulting from cultural, political, economic and technological changes.

Suffice to note that a curriculum may be partly or entirely by external authoritative body. In Uganda, the task of curriculum development and review is vested in the hands of the Ministry of Education Science Technology and Sports (MOEST) through the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC). However at higher education, curriculum development lies in the autonomy powers of the individual university majorly basing on the social needs and labor market demand.

Curriculum innovations and development in Uganda have experienced a number of challenges. These include;

Inadequate funds that has always been an impediment since curriculum reform requires financial support to put up classrooms, laboratories and libraries as has been in the implementation of Universal Primary Education (UPE) and Universal Secondary Education (USE). Most parents could not cope with the simple costs and this resulted into gender disparities, declining enrolment and high failure rates.

Inadequate skilled man power to plan and draw the relevant reforms. For instance the expertriates involved in the forthcoming schools’ new curriculum include ; Andrew Clegg (Sr Education advisor, Namibia –NK), Jacob Bregman (World Bank), Wout Ottevanger (Sr Education Consultant, Vrije University of Amsterdam). All the mentioned are non- Ugandans who may draw irrelevant reforms that may to some extent address the intended purpose.

Bhola (2004), suggests that policy implementation is the process of actualizing, applying and utilizing a policy. In the relation to the above, the new curriculum ends up being vulnerable to community resistence as a result of lack of community participation in the curriculum reforms. Community must thus be involved for it to fully participate and identify with the curriculum reforms.

Lack of clarity and awareness about change of stakeholders at lower levels. Users are not involved in initial reform development of the new curriculum. This attracts many critics because many people are always resistant to change. For instance the new to be curriculum of 2018 is not publicized to all the stakeholders such as the teachers, the students and the parents.

Syomwene (2003), commenting on curriculum reforms in Kenya noted that implementation was also done in a hurry without allowing adequate time for planning. This has been a common phenomenon in Uganda during the implementation of Universal Primary Education (UPE) and Universal Secondary Education (USE). In addition THEMATIC curriculum in primary schools has met a lot of challenges due to ill –preparation at the implementation level. It has faced a lot of resistance and above all it has been interpreted differently from teacher to teacher and from school to school.

Education policy making and implementation is a political process especially in Kenya ( Elimu Yetu Coalition, 2003). Educational planners and administrators rarely carry out policy formulation and implementation without interference from politicians. The UPE program in Uganda for instance was implemented in 1997 after 1996 presidential elections yet the recommendation had been made way back in 1989 Education Policy Review Commission Report, therefore the program was politicized.

This has been followed by sentiments such as; do not away students for some voluntary contributions yet government resources to support this program are so meager to pay school staff and construct classrooms for increased enrolment in schools.

Another notable challenge was the introduction of computer Studies in A ‘Level in 2013 which were made compulsory to students as an alternative to Sub- sidiary mathematics. It was done haphazardly in a sense that many rural schools had no computers and even those that had received government support in this area either had no computer teachers or had no source of power. It all reached the examination period when schools and examination board was confused how to resolve the empathy. The end result was to cancel computer examination that year.

In addition, lack of skilled manpower to plan the curriculum and also to implement the new curriculum reforms. For instance the introduction of UPE in 1997 saw an acute man power gap of teachers and the teacher pupil ratio was at 1:100 and some of the teachers were untrained. The introduction of science policy in secondary in secondary schools also did not plan for the trained and creative teachers of science and the gap is still felt.

Curriculum reforms in Uganda has further faced a challenge of shortage of scholastic and instructional materials such as computers, inadequate science apparatus and reagents after making science subjects compulsory to all. There is also lack of sufficient text books following the introduction of UPE and USE that saw student text book so high.

Rural- urban disparities is also a challenge to curriculum reforms in Uganda. For instance much as ICT Studies was embraced and implemented by most schools in urban areas, rural schools have always ignored important programs thus causing disparity in service delivery. This situation has worsened rural urban shifts since the population is ever moving for better education services.

There is also a challenge of lack of motivation to the curriculum implementers such as the teachers and the school managers. For instance a primary teacher earns a consolidated allowance of Ug sh.350.000= ($ 100) subjected to taxation. This very teacher does not afford a decent living in his/her own country. What is amazing are the salary gaps that exist across the board leaving a teacher getting a discouraging low salary despite the vital services rendered.

There is also lack of political will in Uganda to implement curriculum reforms. UNESCO (2004) affirms that education curriculum reforms requires a strong political will. For instance we realize that although the curriculum recommendations of Senteza Kajubi report in 1989 were attractive, they have partially been implemented and some not implemented at all, for instance the vocationalisation of primary education, secondary education and Primary Teachers’ Colleges.

There is insufficient physical infrastructure in form of classrooms, laboratories, libraries for instance making sciences compulsory even for rural schools left many un answered questions, such as such a school did not even have a science store. This explains the alarming failure rates in sciences especially in disadvantaged schools.

School leadership and some educationalists disrupt proposal from outside since there is limited needs assessment carried out through them. UNESCO (2004) agrees with the above that educational or curriculum reforms require an effective management. Managers thus need to conduct effective supervision and support in the implementation of curriculum reforms.

Fear for change, has been another challenging factor of curriculum factor in Uganda. It is a natural weakness for man to fear change however much positive the change might be to the system. Some teachers for example fear that they may be re- tooled or their services terminated. A case in point is a curriculum reform that saw a resizing of the secondary school curriculum.

There is a possibility of inability to evaluate. Evaluation of educational reforms also deals with such questions as who benefits from curriculum reforms? And who implements them? There is lack of continuous evaluation of curriculum reforms and this makes implementers of curriculum losing truck and therefore failing to live to the expectations of the curriculum objectives.

Ignorance and backwardness also hinder curriculum reforms. Comparably urban communities benefit from curriculum reforms whereas ignorant and backward communities are reluctant to take them up. For instance ICT (Information and Computer Technology) and SESEMAT (Secondary School Science and Math Teacher program) programs have been well embraced in urban areas as compared to rural societies.

3.1 The situation in which Uganda’s Curriculum is being Implemented in Schools.

According to National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC), the term curriculum consists of all aspects of learning and teaching, both formal and informal, which takes place in schools. Curriculum implementation refers to dissemination of a selected set of learning experiences. It is the act of translating curriculum documents into action in the classroom by the teacher. It involves putting the curriculum into practice. The NCDC issues statements for learning and teaching for all schools to follow. These statements explain how teaching should be done in terms of objectives, outcomes and assessment standards. The National Curriculum Statement (NCS) comprises subject statements, each containing definition, purpose, scope, educational and career links, learning outcomes, assessment standards, subject competence descriptions per grade, content and contexts for attaining the assessment standards, and a generic section on assessment. The NCS is used by teachers in schools for guidance on what they must teach.

Several studies have investigated the quality of education and the success of curriculum implementation in Uganda. Developing new curricula has been a popular undertaking in many countries including Uganda and generally, these curricular are well designed and possess praiseworthy aims.

Nevertheless the policy makers involved with developing these curricular are engaged with creating the policies, but “seldom look down the track to the implementation stage” (Rogan and Grayson, 2003). Moreover, it is argued that large- scale changes often neglect the process of implementation and, likewise, low outcomes of educational changes are mainly the result of “ poor implementation of what was essentially a good idea” (Verspoor, 1989).

Overall Uganda has witnessed many examples of well- intentioned and well- designed curriculum programs that have failed to take root on the ground. An example is the THEMATIC curriculum in primary schools. One of the principal reasons, thereto, appears to be a lack of clearly worked out implementation strategy that takes the national and local context into account ( Rogan and Grayson 2003). There is now a common understanding that policy makers need to consider a plan for the implementation stage for reforms to be successful (Altinyelken 2010).

The curriculum implementation process in Uganda has not really met the expectations of the designers. Often, the general way of thinking about the curriculum implementation has been rather top- down and according to Chisholm and Leyendecker (2008), there is a critical link between the big idea and changing actual classroom practice that must be recognized.

The situation has left the country in a blame game situation especially after every release if national results. Parents blame teachers for not teaching, teachers blame government and parents for failing to play their roles while government blames teachers. It is important to note at the start that every stakeholder has a role to play in the curriculum implementation process. It is lack of such a team work that limits curriculum implementation in Uganda.

One of the striking features of curriculum change and implementation is the perceived mismatch between intended curriculum and the classroom reality, i.e, the disparity between policy and practice ( Rogan, 2007; Chisholm and Leyendecker 2008; Bantwini 2010). While there is agreement on the aims of design, there is evidence of divergence in practice. In practice ideas are often decontextualized and displaced and, therefore, they are often unable to meet the social development goals demanded of them. In other words, curriculum implementation process does not follow a designed plan.

Further more, Verspoor (1989) claims that the diversity in schools needs to be taken into account to implement large- scale changes. Therefore, Sergiovanni (1998) proposes a continuum of forces of educational change. These changes consist of, on the one side, top- down (external) end of continuum and on the other side, bottom- up (community based) end of continuum. In contrast to the superficial top- down changes, the community- based changes are likely to be deep and enduring (Rogan and Grayson 2003). Therefore it is important for curriculum implementation process that sufficient attention is paid to the bottom- up changes that are needed for curriculum change to take root on the ground. Ugandan situation does not take this into account.

Curriculum planners at the Ugandan school level are not allowed to take into account the context and capacity of their school, and they are not encouraged to select a route in working towards a meaningful implementation of the curriculum. According to Fullan (2001), it is not just a question of selecting top- down or bottom- up approaches, one to the exclusion of the other, but it is about carefully selecting those forces that are likely to be most effective in the situation at hand.

Some factors are under control of schools and teachers. For example more time is devoted to particular topics in the curriculum, more careful attention to analyzing students’ homework, and more emphasis on providing feedback. On the other hand other factors under control of parents. For example encouraging better attendance or ensuring that home work is completed. However most parents in UPE and USE schools do not mind about checking their children books after school.

In order to allow an education quality improvement intervention to be successful, many influential factors have to be taken into account. Therefore, not only education outcomes are important but also pupil, household and regional characteristics need to be addressed. For example, poor curriculum implementation may be due to the low quality of inputs of schooling system- teachers, learners, teaching methods, learning materials- to underfunding or to factors beyond the education policy. Consequently, an unbiased assessment of the effects of an intervention on, for instance, enrolment must take into account the effects of class size, remoteness, and poverty status of households, as these factors may also affect enrolment rates. This intervention has not been catered for in Uganda.

In Uganda, the neglect of these unobserved selection effects has led to unrealistically high expectations and subsequent disappointment about implementation and wrong policy conclusions. Thus, curriculum implementation is not a straight forward top- down or bottom- up strategy. For this reason a broader model of implementation needs to be considered and, therefore Rogan and Grayson (2003) have developed a theory of implementation which emphasizes a broad analysis of the implementation process that takes contextual factors into account.

The most influential and holistic attempt to categorize curriculum implementation in Uganda was undertaken by Rogan and Grayson (2003). They argued that there is need to acknowledge the existing classroom reality and then build on strength of teachers, pupils and the school’s environment. Subsequently, their profile of implementation allows strengths to be identified and progress to be made by building on these strengths, in comparison with only identified weaknesses. They state that “ since different schools may begin with different strengths, and wish to develop different directions, the profile is neither remedial nor linear in nature” (Rogan and Grayson 2003).

Curriculum changes have not worked best since curriculum developers have not acknowledged the existing realities, classroom cultures and implementation requirements. This requires understanding and sharing the meaning of educational change, providing for adaptations to cultural circumstances, local context and capacity building throughout the system. In most cases, changes have ushered in without consideration of such issues.

Many aspects of implementation processes are not well understood by the curriculum designers during curriculum design process. Consequently there is limited information available where policy makers can draw upon.

With global urbanization, the rural areas of Uganda tend to be somewhat left behind. Considering the UPE and policies which have been adopted and implemented by Uganda, not all children were able to attend school. Therefore, children in remote areas also have a right to attending basic education, but it has been argued that the quality of education in remote areas has become challenging.

Rural- urban disparities are found in effects of UPE, USE and other investments in education. The study by Grogan (2009) analyzed the effects of school fee elimination under UPE. She claims that the positive effects that are found are particularly pronounced for girls in general and also for children living in rural areas; these groups were already named as the most educationally marginalized (Winthrop 2011).

The reason that rural education and rural development in general is an important issue is that over 85% of Uganda’s population still lives in rural; out of 33 million people in 2010 is expected to double in 20 years’ time given that it is growing at a rate of 3.2% per annum.

Uganda has done well on access- related targets since the introduction of UPE in 1997 and USE ten years later, but this has had effects on quality of education. The enormous increase of enrolment did not only have a severe impact on the education system and infrastructure, but it changed the school- going population as well. Uganda offered poor, uneducated parents from remote areas the opportunity to send their children to school (IOB 2008). Furthermore, the low literacy levels in both English and local language, were particularly low outside and in rural areas (Read and Enyutu 2005). This greatly limits curriculum implementation in rural areas mainly due to lack of qualified teachers, which are critical especially in rural areas.

Another factor affecting curriculum implementation and attendance in Uganda schools is poverty. According to the GMR 2012 globally, poverty is particularly concentrated in rural areas. Acham et al (2012) suggest that rural poverty leads to underachievement of children at school. Moreover poverty combined with lack of commitment makes parents unable to provide meals and scholastic materials for their children, which causes irregular attendance thus limiting curriculum implementation. The lack of nutrition influences the school attendance especially in rural areas. Several other factors that influence curriculum implementation include food security, poverty and distances between home and school.

There has been a trade- off between increasing access to education and the quality of education. The global push for access to education by means of the MDGs- followed by a UPE and USE policies has led to the doubling of enrolment in primary schools and consequently the increased pressure on the quality of education in Uganda. In response, the government of Uganda has attempted to increase the quality of education through implementing new curricular.

At the central level, Ministry of Education, Science, Technology & Sports is responsible for redefining policy and ensuring quality and achievement in primary and secondary education. The National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) is responsible for designing the curriculum at this level. This has been successfully done.

The Chief Administrative Officer is the Head of the district and is the representative of the government at the local level. He ensures that national policies are implemented. The district council is an elected body that develops policies at the district level. The management of the district staff, including teachers is the responsibility of the district service commission. All these stakeholders help to monitor curriculum implementation.

The education department is in charge monitoring the quality of education, the use of received funds by schools and the implementation of the curriculum and education policies. It reports to the local authorities in the district; this is under the decentralization program. Support supervision and monitoring by inspectors of schools at this level is mainly done in primary schools. However supervision is irregular due to limited facilitation.

Uganda’s policy of decentralization of government entails that in the education sector the District Education Officers are not functioning as extensions of the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Sports but are part of district authorities and they report to the district administration, not to the Ministry.

At the school level, the Board of Governors and the school management committees are composed of representatives of the foundation bodies of the schools, teachers, parents and local authorities in the area and the education department in the district. These are statutory organs that govern schools on behalf of the government. They make policies at the school level and supervise the implementation of these policies and the curriculum at school level. It is common to find that most members of these bodies are ignorant about education policies and therefore do not easily play their role. Most of them are concerned with the finances and mind less about curriculum.

Parents Teachers Associations also participate in daily management and implementation of the school curriculum. They play a vital role in promoting discipline among students. Most rural parents do not mind about the syllabus coverage. It is left at the mercy of the teacher.

The teacher’s role in curriculum implementation is so crucial. It starts with planning. This involves preparation of schemes of work and lesson plans. Most primary teachers try to fulfill this role. Most secondary school teachers just hurry to classrooms to read lesson notes to students without thorough planning. This causes a great difference between what was designed and what is finally delivered. Poor methods of delivery affects the teaching- learning process and therefore the quality of teaching in most schools is observed to be poor.

There is insufficient instructional leadership in the implementation of the National curriculum. The head teacher as an instructional leader should lead the implementation of the curriculum in school. According to Hoy and Miskel (2008), instructional leadership encompasses those actions the head teacher takes and delegates to others to promote growth in student learning. The instructional leadership of a head teacher has a positive and direct effect on student achievement. It is clear that the purpose of the head teacher’s instructional leadership role is to facilitate effective teaching and learning. The head teacher should organize effective instructional programs, create a positive climate, exercise effective management behavior and overcome constraints of the community or handle inputs from the community effectively.

Furthermore, an instructional leader provides the right curriculum direction for the team, inspires and energizes the team, mentors and supports the team, motivates educational policy to the team, and monitors their progress. The head teacher also oversees the curriculum planning in school; develops and manages assessment strategies; ensures that the teaching and learning time is used effectively, develops and uses team planning; and develops and manages learning resources.

According to (Spaddy and Marshall 1991), the head teacher should acknowledge teachers for exemplary teaching and encourage them to share their expertise with others. He/she should identify quality teaching and provide timely feedback that promotes professional growth. He should ensure that guidance and counseling is carried out. The career guidance done on school assemblies as well as having guidance sessions in presence of parents is essential to children growth.

According to Cunningham and Cordeiro (2000) monitoring and support in the context of class visits create the opportunity for the head teachers to observe teachers’ work, provide motivation and exercise influence. During supervisory discussion teachers get the opportunity of talking to the head teacher on the problems encountered in the teaching- learning process.

In some schools monitoring and support activities are not practiced. The proper implementation of the curriculum by educators requires intensive monitoring strategies. Monitoring strongly determines how the achievement of the set goals is achieved and also determines deficiencies and challenges which teachers and learners meet. When monitoring is done, challenges are forecast, diagnosed so that proper intervention measures are put in place to assist all the concerned parties in the teaching- learning process.

In Uganda most teachers are still using traditional methods of teaching, where a teacher is regarded as the source of information and the learners as the vessels that need to be pumped with knowledge or learning material. The NCDC’s (2012) research on competence- based teaching and learning has been theoretical, aiming at academic performance with little or no effect given to knowledge development and application. NCDC’s (2012) report further indicates that little emphasis is put on student- centered.

According to (Arbeiter & Harley, 2002) it could be seen that in primary schools the predominant method of instruction is the teacher led exercise or lecture, with the pupils filling in answers individually. The teacher writes on the chalkboard while students are busy copying the work as the lesson is going on. The teacher supervises and marks the work of big numbers of students up to 50 or even above, and in most cases picks randomly few books to mark. The teacher generally gives very little or no attention to individuals learners. This has left the learner to take the individual responsibility of his or her learning and this has created a big gap of what is expected. Arbeiter and Hartley, (2002), asserts that there is need to introduce participatory child- centered teaching methods that are practical with big classes involving large number of students (e.g. activity based learning, problem- solving approach, child- to- child activities and group work). Child- centered teaching methods of teaching may not easily fit into the traditional relationship between teacher and pupil in Uganda and may require a new definition of the roles of the teacher and the learner.

In addition to the above, there is a problem of absenteeism by the teachers in schools. For example, the teacher absentee rate in primary schools run at 27%. The 2009 UNESCO Global Monitoring Report said that research suggest that teacher absenteeism is more pronounced in public sector schools, in schools with poorer infrastructure, in rural areas, in schools serving children with from lower socio- economic background, and it goes on to say that high levels of absenteeism of teachers directly affect learning time and outcomes as well as national education costs and spending (UNESCO, 2009).

Apart from teachers, using poor methods of teaching in implementing the curriculum, in schools, there are other problems associated with students for example, frequent student absenteeism and high drop- out rates. In 1997, only 22% of the P1 cohort was progressing through P7 in 2003 (ESA, 2004). These mentioned practices have greatly affected the quality of curriculum implementation in Uganda. For example, according to Uganda National Examinations Board, (UNEB, 2005), annual tests have identified alarmingly low levels of achievement in literacy and mathematics. The 2005 UNEB report revealed that only 38 % of the P3 students and 30% of the P6 students reached the minimum competency level in literacy. Results for numeracy were equally depressing since only 14% of P3 students and 33% of P6 students could attain minimum competence level (Altinyelken 2010).

After establishing that enrolment has increased drastically after implementing UPE and USE, it became very clear that in Uganda a lot of children do not complete primary school. For example, the drop- out rate in Uganda has increased from 61.8% to 70.2% in 2013. Children dropping out do so increasingly in the last two years of primary school. This is reflected by the survival rate: the survival rate to grade five remained at 57% between 1999 and 2010, but the survival rate to primary seven decreased from 38% (1999) to 32% (2009) (UNESCO 2012).

With regards to drop out rates, there are important differences between urban children and rural living children. Grogan (2009) points out that 11% of the attendees are far more likely to reside in rural areas; 96% of non- attendees live in rural areas, against 98% of school- going children.

The policy of compulsory sciences in secondary schools leaves a lot to be desired. Though the policy has increased the number of scientists, the teaching of science has remained theoretical in most schools. This is mainly due to many part- time teachers, lack of facilities and overloaded curriculum.

Another consequence of vulnerability through poverty that hurts curriculum implementation is child labor. A recent report by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE 2012) gives insight in the reasons why children in Uganda missed school. To miss school due because of work accounts for 11%; but when divided into income categories differences increase: work accounts for 25% of missed days in the lowest quartile; compared to only 9% in the highest quartile. Overall children missed about 14% of all school days. The GPE report concludes that, on the basis of household survey in Uganda, the most important reason for children to miss school was illness. These numbers indicate factors that could be more likely to hinder rural and poor areas in teaching and learning.

The pupil/teacher ratio has a great impact on curriculum implementation in Uganda. The previously ascertained access shock has put pressure on the pupil/teacher ratio. The amount of teachers and primary schools increased by 41% between 1997 and 2004, while the enrolment increased by 171% (Nishimura et al 2008). However, later on the national average pupil/teacher ratio can conceal large regional disparities. A recent review showed that, in Uganda the northern regions had pupil ratio larger than 90:1 , almost double of the national average ratio (UNESCO 2010). Uganda’s northern regions are affected by conflict in recent years, which might be an explanation for the higher pupil/teacher ratio. The above data therefore shows how difficult it is to use relevant teaching/learning materials and methods of delivery.

Absenteeism is a serious problem for curriculum implementation, because it not only affects the quantity and quality of schooling, but also pupils’ attendance and drop- out rates (IOB 2008). This is stressed by the GMR 2010 as an example of large pockets of regional marginalization in Uganda. High rates of teacher absenteeism reflect underlying problems. Many schools lack teacher housing, so teachers have to commute long distances sometimes along insecure routes. Teachers’ income also tends to be far lower than what teachers need in terms of basics like food, clothing shelter and paying tuition for their biological children at school. Unfortunately there is no reliable data on the rate of teacher absenteeism. However, the Directorate of Education Standards’ Annual Report (DES 2012) indicates that 74% of teachers were absent on the day inspections took place. This is a major concern, as only around 55% of the districts showed evidence of follow- up on teacher absenteeism. This is still a limitation to curriculum implementation.

Curriculum implementation in Uganda is also limited by the level of teachers’ performance. The NAPE report 2011 tested the teachers’ performance as well and this indicates a challenging situation, find out teachers’ achievement of secondary school teachers in Biology, English, and Mathematics gave related results. To sum up, a teacher in rural schools performed better than teachers in urban schools when it comes to numeracy, though the difference was not significant.

The introduction of local language as a medium of instruction in lower primary education also greatly influences curriculum implementation in Uganda. This could be an explanation for the better performance in numeracy in P.3. Pupils’ weak performance in literacy (in both P.3 and P.6) could have been caused by the insufficient level of teachers, skills to teach, particularly reading among other factors. This is reflected by the teachers’ weak performance in oral reading; implying that they might not have been taught reading skills themselves. Another likely drawback for the performance of pupils is insufficient instructional materials (UNEB 2011).

Furthermore, there is lack of financial support from the department of education. Schools need financial support from the government, private sector or parents in order to effectively implement the curriculum. The government takes a lead in supporting public schools because it is concerned with accessing of basic education to all. Financial assistance from the private sector is not guaranteed. Similarly some parents do not have money to pay for the education of their children. Funds are required for the purchase of learning and teaching support materials, organizing human resource to facilitate the workshops for staff development at school level, constructing classrooms, libraries for reading and research, laboratories for experiments, and sports facilities.

CHAPTER FOUR. THE ROLE OF A LEARNER AND A TEACHER

Curriculum implementation involves the dissemination of the structured set of learning experiences, provision of resources to effectively execute the plan, and the actual execution in the classroom setting where teacher- learner interactions take place (Mkapa 1987).

Therefore curriculum implementation is that stage of the curriculum process where the learner through the guidance of a teacher interacts with a variety of learning experiences so as to make learning process fruitful may be noticed in the learners’ new behavior or new approaches. Hence, both the learner and the teacher bear a reasonable amount of responsibility during curriculum implementation and program management.

The learners are critical element in the entire process of curriculum implementation since learners hold the key to what is actually translated and adopted from the official designed curriculum that is meant for them.

Learners influence the teacher in the selection of learning experiences because the school consists of many levels and class grades calling upon the teacher to prepare for the disparities among the learners for instance individual differences between the slow learners and the quick learners. Therefore a teacher selects the suitable learning methods and teaching aids to suit each category of learners.

The learner plays the role of exhibiting desirable discipline both in and outside the classroom through maximum obedience to the school rules and regulation and attending to the classwork and the entire school program. For example doing all assignments, tests and examinations yield into some level of desirable learning.

For the implementation of curriculum to be effectively done, the learner should be physically, mentally and emotionally available to the teacher for instruction so that the planned program in implemented.

The teacher’s role in curriculum implementation is very important because the teacher with his or her knowledge, experiences and competencies translates the structures curriculum into learning experiences, for instance through the teacher, learners are able to acquire knowledge, skills, values and attitudes.

A teacher enriches and modifies the curriculum to suit the learners’ characteristics. The teacher beaks down the curriculum into small units which can be grasped by the learners. Appropriate methodology is adopted by the teacher such as teaching from the simple to abstract, from the known to the unknown and not forgetting the many kinds of individuals’ differences that appear in the classroom.

It is the teacher’s role to search for the relevant teaching and learning materials in the implementation process such that the goals of the structured curriculum are achieved. Therefore the process calls for the teacher’s innovativeness and creativity while using the available resources to process the best output out of these resources.

The teacher addresses the needs, interests of learners by creating experiences where they can learn from. It is the teacher’s role to formulate lesson objectives which are derived from the syllabus and subject content and ensure that the objectives are achieved through mastering the content by the learners. The teacher should labor to motivate learners in order to create interest and desire for learning.

It is the teacher’s role to emphasize good discipline during the implementation process through employing class management techniques and more so the teacher should be a role model in exhibiting good discipline in class and outside class. This is important for creating a good atmosphere for teaching and learning.

The teacher assesses the learners in the process of curriculum implementation. This is to measure whether the intended curriculum objectives and aims have been achieved by the learners and see whether there are some gaps that require remedial action. The assessment can be at the end of every lesson or in form of assignment that may be periodical.

The teacher supervises the learners’ activities in and outside the classroom environment. This is done to find out whether there is normal progress in academic and non- academic achievement. The supervision is done basing on the work plan drawn at the school or classroom level. The teacher’s planning role is very important and aids in supervision.

The teacher carries out counseling and guidance with the aim of achieving the intended aims and ensuring that learners keep focused in the right direction throughout their course of study. This is meant for short term, medium- term and long- term learner achievement.

4.1 Challenges that teachers face in curriculum implementation.

The challenges that teachers face range from personal failures, community’s outlook, parents and government policies. They include;

Un- Conducive environment characterized by noise, dilapidated classrooms, overcrowded classrooms among other major challenges. These detract the normal progress to teaching and learning.

The non- involvement of teachers in the curriculum design and development process hinders effective implementation. Teachers should be consulted widely when it comes to curriculum design so that relevant learning experiences and learning aids are incorporated in planning and development.

There are also lack of teacher development programs in form of work- shops and seminars. In some cases upgrading on one’s studies in non- existent. This leads to inefficiency and incompetency.

Another limitation is the parent factor, where most parents especially the illiterate and the poor fail to provide their children with scholastic materials like pens, books, school uniform and at times they even fail their role of feeding their children.

Unbearable working conditions for instance low remuneration to staff, poor or no accommodation, delay in payments, all affect the teacher while doing his role.

The student related challenges for example students’ discipline affect the teaching learning process. It leads to a break- down in communication and many times lives of staff are always in danger making them insecure. This is manifested in the very many strikes and riots that happen in Secondary schools.

Another limitation is limited and insufficient learning materials in form of text books both for teachers’ guide and the learners, laboratory equipment, and chemicals for practical lessons.

The cultural beliefs among some communities which do not value education. These include fishing communities and these communities are reluctant to send their children to school. Even when they do so they are not ready to support teachers in curriculum implementation in terms of facilitation and following up children.

Other management concerns include the following:

There is a myriad of factors that affect management of education institutions.

Poor or lack of mission, under capitalization, red tape, instability of tenure, poor quality management and corruption are some of the management factors that hamper effectiveness of management in schools. Rutagi (1992) calls it “maliyaz syndrome” on the latter. He dwells a lot by explaining that the education sector has performed poorly because management sees it as every body’s and therefore no body’s property which can be misappropriated with impunity and get away with particularly as there has not been any serious punishment and corrective action for those found guilty of the offences.

Lack of mission or absolute missions are part of management issues that paralyze systems in schools. For any section of the education sector it needs a clear mission statement. The administration must take stock of where it is and envision where it would like to go in future and be steered strategically in that direction. According to Thompson and Strickland ( 1987), stresses that without a mission the education sector cannot have a strategy and without a strategy it is like a ship without a rudder, going around in circles like a tramp with no place to go”. Such “ ships without rudders” will no doubt be swept astray by fierce winds”. Schools therefore need strategic management goals from where work plans of any school bases.

Political patronage is also a common management error that sometimes sinks schools in their operationalization mechanisms. This is where government recruits wrong staff on boards and management of education institutions sometimes including non- managerial staff on political affiliations or kinship ties with the relevant minister or whoever has the political influence. As a consequence those people pay royalty to their appointing “god fathers” and not the school system. This undermines the technical leadership of education institutions.

Declining bureaucratic capacity where government fails to give adequate attention to capacity building strategies that cannot promote better formulation of policies and programs. Also government’s failure to recruit and or maintain enough qualified professionals, managers and technicians in the upper education cycles.

4.2. ROLES OF OTHER STAKEHOLDERS

a) The role of central government;

- Provides infrastructure for secondary and primary schools such as classrooms, libraries, laboratories, and sanitation facilities.
- Pays tuition for legible UPE and USE students.
- Provides guidelines for utilization of resources such as capitation grants and any other resources meant for the development of schools.
- Pays wages to staff that include teaching and non- teaching staff.
- Allocates funds meant for curriculum review to have a reliable, efficient and effective curriculum.
- Provides the necessary human power that includes the teaching and non- teaching staff.
- Administers schools through the instituted Board of governors and Management committees.
- Takes the responsibility for quality assurance through monitoring and evaluation policy.

b) The role of Local Government.

- Ensures that all children going age go to school. And also those who successfully complete P7 and S4 continue with education through the set by- laws of the community.
- Monitor the implementation of education programs in the district, county and sub- county through local councils.
- Carry out publicity on the education programs.
- Participate in identifying institutions for specific education programs like USE.
- Identify the weaknesses in education system and report them to government with recommendations.
- Carry out regular inspection to minimize wastage of government resources.
- Does the monitoring and evaluation on issues regarding to enrolment adherence and utilization of resources.

c) The role of School Administration- Head teacher.

- Responsible for enrolling children and ensures that only legible candidates are enrolled in USE program.

- Responsible for receipt and expenditure of all the money as per approved budgets.
- Provides termly reports regarding the education programs in school.
- Account regularly and display accountability.
- Ensures a productive environment for his personnel.
- Implements government reforms and programs.

d) Role of the Parents/ Guardians responsibilities of the boards of Governors.

- Approves the annual school budget and the school annual work plans.
-Administers school assets and property ; movable and immovable.
-Governs the school basing on the education Act.
-Voluntary organizations that provide for discipline and welfare of students and staff.
-Monitors the activities in the school pertaining teaching and learning.
-Takes care of school infrastructure such as buildings and other facilities.
-Promotes cultural and co- curriculum activities such as games and sports.

e) The role of the SMT (Senior Management Team) includes, amongst others, the following:

-establishing with the teacher the purpose of a class visits.
-deciding what criteria will be used to monitor classroom practice
-Developing a profile of each educator, with the teachers themselves
-Discussing the feedback from class visits and how to feed through recommendations into future practice
-To support review and reflective practice for promoting learning achievements.
-To value immediate feedback from the entire school’s system.
-Developing regular post- classroom visit action plans.
-Reporting and recording systems meant for easy monitoring and evaluation.
-To determine the professional needs of each teacher, and describe an INSET (In- Service Education and Training) plan against those needs
-To ensure proper quality assurance practices at classroom level for quality teaching process.

The role of stakeholders varies from time to time depending on the prevailing circumstances. The stakeholders involve personnel in schools, communities, faith- based organizations, political divide, NGOs, civil society, and private providers of education.

CHAPTER FIVE. TWENTY CHRONIC CHALLENGES OF UPE SCHOOLS IN UGANDA.

The Universal Primary Education (UPE) policy was launched in 1997 following a recommendation of the Education Policy Review Commission (EPRC). It had been originally stated that every child be enrolled at the right age and does not leave school without completing education needed for a meaningful life. It was meant to achieve transformation of society, achieving unity among the people, high moral standards and accelerated growth of the economy. Ever since its inception, UPE has faced a lot of criticisms despite its good objectives for which it was set.

In march 2015, the president of Uganda Mr Yoweri Museveni ordered a probe into the 20 chronic challenges of UPE schools in Uganda. These include.

1. Poor payment of teachers. This has resulted into some of them looking for other means of survival for example riding boda- boda, setting up businesses among other income generating projects. It is believed that little pay has not attracted good quality labor force in the teaching profession.
2. The poor image of teachers. Society has developed a poor image on teachers where they think of teaching as a poor profession. Little confidence has been put in the teaching force by society and teachers have failed to command respect like other civil servants.
3. Poor policies of recruitment and training. Recruitment was once characterized by poor entry requirements and grades the time when there was a lot of scarcity of teachers. This trend has changed but society still believes that people who join the profession are not good performers.
4. Lack of motivation for teachers. This is as a result of no allowances, annual increments and very meager chances of promotions. There are those who work in difficult working conditions like poor or no accommodation, no feeding especially lunch and this demotivates teachers.
5. Lack of trust by both parents and children. There is an attitude that there is nothing much that UPE is contributing to society and this has made children reluctant to pay attention to education.
6. Non- functional School Management Committees (SMC). This greatly affects the effective evaluation and supervision of teachers. Most of the members that form SMCs lack technical knowledge and some are illiterate. There is a lot of laxity possibly due to the voluntary nature of their roles.
7. Corruption and bribery. This has been noted in most District Service Commissions which results and recruitment of poor quality personnel.
8. Teachers lack access to developmental loans. This is as a result of lack of collateral security. They therefore have limited chances of carrying out development projects to supplement their meager incomes. This has worsened poverty in the teaching fraternity.
9. Lack of good housing policies for teachers. There is lack of housing facilities in most schools and therefore teachers have to trek long distances daily to schools which hampers their performance.
10. Negligence and reluctance by government by government. Government has failed to do effective supervision of most of its programs in public schools such as construction and this has always resulted in shoddy work despite huge sums of money released.
11. Poor social infrastructure. Some schools especially those in rural areas enjoy poor social facilities in terms of road net- work, medical services, water and communication.
12. The ratio of teachers to pupils. Classrooms are heavily congested and therefore there is very little attention paid to pupils.
13. Futile efforts put in upgrading. Despite efforts by some teachers putting resources in furthering their studies, there is little fruit realized in form of promotions and increments. This has demotivated them.
14. Thematic curriculum. This is a good curriculum but many stakeholders have misunderstood the curriculum. Tutors who train the teachers lack the competence to handle the thematic curriculum.
15. Failure of teachers to identify ghost teachers and schools. There are many ghost teachers being paid by government and this has continuously affected and strained the ministry’s expenditure.
16. Insufficient facilitation. There is irregular inspection by District Inspectors of Schools and District Education Officers due to inadequate funds.
17. Some head teachers do not have genuine qualifications. They thus lack managerial competence and skills in public institutions. This has caused poor administration and poor quality curriculum delivery.
18. Insufficient capitation grants. Little funds are released by government and this retards school programs.
19. Lack of enough information by parents. Parents have little knowledge on UPE policy and this makes its implementation very difficult.
20. Many schools are located in areas where there is hardly any food. This has a very big impact on performance of both teachers and pupils.

CHAPTER SIX RESOURCES NEEDED FOR CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION.

Curriculum resources refer to a large collection of materials suitable for use in the institutions to facilitate teaching and learning. These resources prepare learners to become productive members of society especially families, work place, and the community. Without these resources, curriculum design, reform, implementation and evaluation becomes very difficult. These various resources include;

6.1. Human resources.

These resources are central for curriculum consumption, translation and dissemination as well as interpretation. They include teachers who are charged with the responsibility of teaching, learners who are charged with acquiring learning experiences and utilize them to change their mother communities as well as communities around them. Also parents are considered important since they provide materials to their children. The community and non- teaching staff also play a key role in curriculum implementation.

6.2 Infrastructural resources.

These are also so central to curriculum implementation. These resources include classrooms, libraries, and laboratories for both ICT (Computer laboratory) and general science laboratory for Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Agriculture. Fine Art rooms, kitchen, storerooms, dining hall, examination halls all fall under this category.

6.3 Management resources.

These are also important resources needed in curriculum implementation. These include all offices that are concerned with education for example the department of education that is concerned with registration of all schools in the country, the district education offices for staffing and inspection, head teacher’s office, and deputy head teachers. Even materials used like registers, record books, wall clocks, books of accounts, progress reports on performance of learners are all essential for curriculum implementation and program management.

6.4 Co- Curriculum activities resources.

Since learning takes place even outside class, then resources like play fields, games and sports equipment, music, dance and drama equipment all makes implementation of the curriculum easier and interesting.

6.5 Scholastic and instructional resources.

These according to article 34 of the Uganda Constitution, they are supposed to be provided for by the state and the parents. They include text books, chalk, black boards, furniture, ranging from desks, chairs, stools and laboratory tables, library book shelves, wall charts, CDs and DVDs for computer related lessons. All these must be in place for effective and efficient school curriculum implementation.

6.6 Hygiene and Sanitation resources.

Curriculum planners have a task to make a provision of the hygiene and sanitation resources at school. These are resources related to toilets and pit latrines, bathrooms, urinals, dust bins and water points. These resources ensure student and staff welfare at school.

6.7 Financial resources.

Financial resources are necessary to recruit, select and place man power as well as paying their wages. Finance is also used to expand infrastructure and procure more scholastic materials thus used as a vessel of development.

6.8 Safety and security resources.

These resources are also vital in management and curriculum implementation. Learners must feel secure as they attend to their lessons. Such security resources in school include fire extinguishers, fencing school perimeters, lighting arrestors, deployment of school guards, emphasis on entries, installation of hydro- electricity security bulbs among security other equipment.

6.9 Land resource

Land is a prime resource upon which every activity takes place. The Ministry compels all schools to own land upon which infrastructure is set. Land is needed for the establishment of demonstration gardens, school farms, play fields as well as for infrastructural development. Whereas vertical expansion has been introduced, land remains paramount in curriculum implementation and program management.

Cognizant of the fact that learning activities do not necessarily take place in classrooms alone, compounds have been identified as a major resource as they can disseminate and transmit learning. This is in accordance with the talking compounds where compounds are decorated with inspiring and guiding posters such as

AIDS KILLS.

ABSTAIN FROM SEX.

RESPECT ONE ANOTHER.

ALL WIDOM COMES FROM GOD.

PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT.

These coupled with school mottos, mission statement and school vision tend to present some learning experiences to a learner that has a far reaching effect.

Since curriculum aims at providing learning experiences to transform society, community resources are also very necessary. The community provides building materials like sand, bricks, food stuffs to educational institutions, also provides protection and safety and also helps in controlling discipline.

The attainment of resources like human resources, financial resources, infrastructure, co- curricular, land, safety and security and many others makes it possible for easy curriculum implementation and program management. However, inspection reports have continued to indicate that some of these resources are lacking in schools more especially safety and security resources. Quite number of schools in Uganda lack lightening arrestors, fire extinguishers and perimeter fences. Also notable are poor hygiene and sanitation resources and limited infrastructure which suffocates the process of curriculum implementation and program management. Inspection reports should thus prompt government to provide essential resources and task the private sector to meet minimum standards for proper curriculum implementation and program management for the good of society.

CHAPTER SEVEN CREATING A SUPPORTIVE SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT FOR CURRICULUM CHANGE

There are different levels of accountability, both at school management and classroom management level, which have the responsibility of ensuring that quality teaching and learning does happen within the school. It is the responsibility of the school principals, ultimately, to ensure that their schools deliver their brief against their mission, vision, curriculum goals and action plans.

The success of a school lies in its success in creating a supportive environment for curriculum change. There are a number of indicators that can be put in place to measure this success, and its main indicator is probably the increase of learner performance and attainment. A number of issues are at play when determining how to deliver qualitatively. For example, included as important issues are:

-Defining the teaching and learning expectations. This means that the outcomes for teaching and learning practices are clearly spelt out.

-Rigorous planning at different management levels within the school

-Identifying and developing support strategies and mechanisms

-Defining ways of motivating teachers and learners to accept challenges presented to them by new practice

-Developing monitoring and evaluation strategies which can be used to enhance, rather than detract from, classroom practice.

Required classroom practices include;

-classroom organization and management
-Ensuring that all important and relevant information is recorded and transferred with learners
-Organizing classroom space and Furniture.
-Organizing learners into working groups
-Group dynamics: different management roles within a group
-Gender in the classroom.
-Managing different kinds of diversity in the classroom.
-Classroom discipline - creating a code of conduct with the class
-Organising time in the classroom and school
-The problems of large class teaching

DETERMINING CURRICULUM GOALS –Macro planning.

-The involvement entire staff in planning and implementation.
-Consulting relevant stakeholders of the school
-Should be derived from the VISION and MISSION of the school
-Should be based upon a SWOT analysis in the context of the school system and the needs of learners, parents /community and society at large Important:
-should differentiate between institutional and curriculum goals
Examples of Curriculum Goals
-To Increase learners awareness of security and in the surrounding and the
community
-To Conserve, manage and develop the natural resources
-To Empower learners of their rights as citizens

7.1. The Classroom at micro level in the school.

The purpose of this unit is to engage school management in professional conversation about what role SMTs play in managing a classroom. In the light of current practice, school management roles seem to be divorced and removed from classroom management practices. A school’s SMT is challenged to show, through practice and support, how it is able to extend broader management action plans to support classroom management. The idea of the school principal, deputy principal and heads of departments acting as critical friends to the classroom teacher is encouraged. In the context of a critical friend, line managers have their roles defined by the nature and scope of the support they provide at classroom level.

The classroom is where a large part of the learning takes place so it must be as conducive to learning as possible. We thus need to look at

-the room itself and the arrangement of the furniture and resources
-the way the learners are organised to do the learning in this setting, and
-how the learning activities are organised by the teacher according to the planning done at school level.

There is an emphasis on co- operative and group learning, so the arrangement of furniture and resources needs to be convenient for that way of working. This also allows the teacher to move more freely around the room and interact with individual learners and groups more easily.

Tables and chairs or desks will thus be arranged in groups, with all the available teaching and learning resources placed on shelves around the room where both the learners and teacher have easy access to them.

The resources in the classroom will consist of tools like scholastic materials, writing and art materials, textbooks, magazines, newspapers and reference books, language materials, posters and other illustrations for current teaching and learning activities.

Keeping the classroom order is not only the teacher’s responsibility. To learn best, learners need to own the learning process together with the teacher. A good way to encourage this is for them to manage the classroom together with the teacher:

-let learners decide what the duties are which are needed to keep proper order of the classroom.

-let someone draw up a duty rota so that all learners share the duties and responsibilities. This is the beginning of individual learning responsibility.

What could these duties be?

-Tidying, cleaning and sweeping;
-Opening and closing of windows
-Collecting and handing out of books
-Watering of plants
- Collecting books from the library

7.2. Assessment, recording and reporting

Schools should put in place assessment plans and strategies which will support the teaching and learning practice, monitor learner performance and record learner attainment. To do this, schools will use the assessment policy, plans and strategies developed by the provincial departments (in cases where decentralization of education policy is strengthened). This means that assessment plans and strategies will differ from school to school, and from province to province.

When any learning experience or activity in question is assessed, it is done so as to examine whether some achievement has been realized out the learning outcomes of the particular activity or experience. Learning outcomes, in turn, are assessed against the Specific Outcomes, their Assessment Criteria and their Performance Indicators which have to be achieved in the different learning areas.

Reporting “Effective communication about learner achievement and progress is a prerequisite for the provision of quality education. An appropriate report must convey, through the teacher’s comments, a clear learner’s impression of personal knowledge of the, his/her achievement and progress, and provide useful feedback to evaluate and improve learning and teaching.

7.3. Active cooperation and responsibility

All the above management techniques is the idea that to learn best, stakeholders must take an active part in the teaching and learning process. It widely known that the more real hands- on experience the learners have, the more involved they are, the better they remember and the more effective on change of behavior. Learners need to be engaged in co- operative learning process in the classroom through helping to work through their groups activities, explaining academic concepts to their peers, vocabulary translation, preparing teaching materials such as making posters and notices for the walls of the classroom, and helping in the administrative tasks in class. They are therefore to learn about community building as well as transformation, and responsibility for their society.

Planning should Address the issues of:

1 -Gender Issues
2 -Group Learning.
3 -Classroom Discipline.
4 -Assessment, Recording and Reporting.

7.4. Gender issues

Gender refers to socially determined roles and relationships between men and women (Mlama, Marema & Nyoni,2005). Recent studies done in schools have shown that there is gender discrimination in schools. Teachers allocate leadership responsibilities to boys and give them more attention which has caused them to excel compared to girls

School managers are urged to address the issues surrounding gender imbalances at school level while planning. Planning at management level, as well as in the curriculum delivery these issues need to be addressed for instance historically, female teachers used to teach at the lower grade levels, and females would fill very few management positions in society. Teaching materials learning content and context are not gender responsive and portray boys to be in superior positions and strong and take girls as weak, passive and submissive. At management level many schools offer curricular activities select activities which stereotype learners’ choices. The planning and delivery of school curriculum can address these imbalances through the following;

- Be fair in the classroom. Educators are encouraged to look carefully at displays in the classroom and examine them to avoid bias. Splitting up boys and girls for activities and games is discouraged. In class discussion, teachers can prompt students in other ways than calling them by name.
- Select books carefully. Consider what your children can read and does not perpetuate bias, and encourage them to read books that include stereotype- busting story lines or include alternative lifestyle choices.
- Encourage non- traditional choices. Girls must be allowed to take shop classes if they desire and boys should be encouraged to take home economics. As your children grow, offer then opportunities to explore all occupations equally, and resist the idea that a child’s gender may impact an ability to work in an area of interest.
- Accept that cultural differences may impact children’s views on gender. Tactfully approach these situations by enforcing the idea that while enforcing the idea that while differing cultural backgrounds must always be respected, discrimination is not acceptable at school.
- Examine your curriculum and materials for examples of successful men and women; supplement if necessary. Awareness of pronouns is vital; presenting storylines or when discussing occupations, make a conscious effort to use “she” or “he” equally.
- Avoid traditional gender roles when assigning student chores. Teachers should encourage girls and boys to operate technology in the classroom. Parents should assign household chores equitably.
- Create a learning environment that includes both competitive and cooperative activities; research has shown that whereas boys learn best competitively, girls learn best in cooperative study groups.
- Expectations for boys and girls academic achievement should be equal. Girls and boys should be given equal and enough encouragement. This reduces bias on both of them towards certain situations.

7.5. Group Learning and Group dynamics

Group learning is an active learning where students work together to perform specific tasks in a small group. The planning and delivery of the school curriculum as well as teaching practice can address group learning as follows

- Use the teaching methods that enhance group learning. Examples are group discussion and group experiments.
- Prepare the learning content and teaching materials that suits learning in groups
- Learners should manage their own group work to have effective group work. The teacher must give very clear instructions and work to be done must be clearly defined so that each group is sure what to do.
- Assign tasks to every member of the group so that each of them contributes equally towards the final outcome. Each group member must understand his management role in the group.
- Monitor and guide students but do not do the work for them.

There are needed essential considerations for the type of teaching and learning practices adopted and considered desirable. Planning is vital for ensuring effective teaching and learning in school. Learner- centred approaches is the key focus should happens in the classroom as well as the entire school operations and mechanisms. It is of paramount importance to learners since it will cause a lie long change in behavior. To achieve these desired outcomes inherent in each premise there must be well planned and initiated principals and the attainment of outcomes must be well managed.

School organs have to align current practices and strategic plans, structures and systems which aid the school to attain the outcomes implicit in the well set structures and in each of the premises and principles in order to achieve the set aims.

The main challenge faced is to select best practices that suit all schools. These practices are meant to accommodate the diversity of needs existing in all schools. They are also supposed to bring practice as close as possible to the broader national goals. Best practices aims at improving learner achievement by creating an environment in which both teachers and learners understand their roles and share a clear purpose so that they are able to take shared responsibility for learning and teaching. They should be able to engage collaboratively in school activities which promote the goals of the designed curriculum. This calls for the development of a school culture which requires all members of the school to foster the right attitudes of efficiency and effectiveness aimed at improving learner performance and achievement. It does not only focus on aspects of curriculum development, but extends beyond school activity and programs and begins to address community issues around the school.

The school culture exhibits the expectations, values and beliefs of all the members of the school. The school culture school draws on other different cultures. It draws from culture that exists in and around the school community, and translates them into one collective culture for all members in the school. Also all stakeholders involved with school business i.e in organization, planning and curriculum delivery will also have an impact on the school culture. There is a collaborative agreement on the mission and vision of the school. This defines by as to what the purpose of the school is and on what beliefs the purpose is built at a certain point in time. This forms a basis upon which curriculum goals are formulated.

Structures, strategies and systems are put in place to ensure that the school culture is dynamic and supportive of an effective learning culture. It is the cultural change that supports the teaching- learning process, which leads to enhanced outcomes for learners (Hopkins, Ainscow & West, 1994). A school with an effective learning culture

- it portrays the image of a “professional community”, for instance people in similar fraternity of law or medicine. Teachers pursue a clear shared purpose, engage in collaborative activity, and there is a collective responsibility for student learning (Newmann & Wehlage, 1995).
- has a clear school mission. This can help to improve on productivity and effectiveness of the workers. Teachers will value the exchanging of ideas with colleagues. Strong values exist that support a safe and secure environment. There are high expectations of everyone, including teachers. There is strong (not rigid) leadership (Deal & Peterson, 1990). is an environment of inquiry, encouraging teachers and others to work collaboratively and collegially to seek aspects of school improvement (Burbacher, 1994).

7.6. Classroom discipline - creating a code of conduct with the class

At school, the most productive classrooms are those where there is high level of discipline. High discipline creates an environment in which learners are so interested in their work that they are constantly busy and learners do not disrupt the concentration of others. The atmosphere is so welcome and relaxed and unthreatening where students feel free to work and express themselves, and they can think at their best on student level. Self- discipline and personal responsibility becomes part and parcel of one’s life. This is the opposite of control by use of rule of thumb where the teacher has to keep everybody under strict control by threatening and punishing frequently.

There is no doubt everyone in class strive for perfect life so that he can work and achieve the best which creates order in the classroom. Teachers and learners are always having open discussions for appropriate behavior and this enhances the quality of learning.

The planning and delivery of school curriculum as well as the teaching- learning practice can address the issue of discipline through the following;

- Creating a conducive environment such as printing posters in classrooms and school compounds emphasizing discipline.
- Including guidance and counseling services in the curriculum and looking for expertise to provide these services.
- Include moral related subjects such as religious studies in the curriculum.
- Orient new students to enable them understand and fit into the school culture.

7.7. The problem of teaching a large class.

It is difficult to define a large class. In some countries, a class 30 students is seen as a big class while in other countries this is seen as a big class. In other countries, however, such class would be challenging to teachers. While it is hard to draw definitive conclusions about student achievement based on class size alone, since other variables such as quality of teachers, student degree of motivation and role of parents come into play, large classes yield the following difficulties;

- With a large class, it is difficult to get satisfactory knowledge of each student’s needs. Intimacy with students and remembering their names may not be easy.
- As a consequence of the large number of students, the noise level is inevitably high. This is likely to create stress to the teacher, leave a lone creating an undisciplined students.
- Planning, Organizing and presenting lessons may also be another challenge because students’ abilities differ.
- Engaging learners actively in the learning process may not be easy in a crowded classroom.
- A large class gives reluctant students an opportunity to hide and dodge classwork.

7.8.Tips for managing a large class.

It is undoubtedly very difficult for a teacher to deal with large classes. Anything done to remedy a problem would be fruitless unless there a motivation for children to learn. Nevertheless the following tips may be useful to alleviate the intensity of the problem.

- Firstly, it would be a good idea to train learners to work in small groups of between and ten members. In order to increase the chance of everyone participating, it is advisable to make around table sitting arrangement.
- To reduce the noise level and stress it is important to set simple classroom rules.
- Some work can also be delegated some of the work to more able students. This makes it to enable the teacher to concentrate on weaker students. This should however be done with a lot of caution so as not to affect the self- esteem of weaker students.
- Students with learning disabilities should sit in front so that they are near the teacher. This allows the teacher to increase monitoring the progress of the disadvantaged children.
- Dividing classroom chores to students should be done with a lot of care. This makes learning more learner- centered and interesting.

It is important to note that teaching a large class is a daunting task and psychologically undesirable. The big classes mostly involve motivation challenges, mixed abilities, needs and interests, language levels and undefined goals. On the other hand teaching large classes can be rewarding and interesting when it is planned for properly.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Source: MOE. Status report on Primary Leaving Performance for the Period 2010- 2012.

According to the information given, a total of 42,926 pupils in urban areas, 13.2% in day schools passed in Div1, followed by 4.6% of partly boarding schools passed with Div1 and for full boarding government schools 0.3% passed in Div1.

It has been argued that for an institution/ organization to realize success, it requires an efficient- minded leader who is focused on the “ how the what” in an effort to fine tune the methods, systems, and procedures for the production of goods and services ( Amukobole, 2012:16).

Therefore to apply this notion to Ugandan education institutions, the writer will try to attempt to highlight the meaning of efficiency. As already noted above, efficiency focuses on doing ones work in the correct manner, seeks to avoid failures and is oriented towards keeping the present system going. However the efficiency of leadership in Ugandan education institutions is facing a challenge. Factors that include low financing, higher enrolment, insufficient remuneration of staff, poor conditions of service, poor facilities and teacher absenteeism affect efficiency of leadership in primary and secondary schools today.

Although Uganda has done a commendable job of increasing access to both primary and secondary education over the past years, funding has remained far below than the required to the extent that this crisis has created a gap in teaching and learning process. It has also stifled research efforts in institutions of higher learning and down pressed general standards of service. Education managers have been constrained and left with not enough facilities. This kind of situation has created financial gaps that have tempted the leadership to provide poor quality services. Some leaders of these institutions have gone to the extent of borrowing funds from financial institutions that attract heavy taxes and this in turn a negative bearing on the financiers of education especially the parents. The burden of paying back these loans affects both education and non- education expenditures. Students are poorly fed, accommodation facilities have remained far below the infrastructure standards and some schools close before the official end of term. This also affects the environment in which providers of these education services operate. The managers and administrators will have no means to provide security to their subordinates and neither will they be able to facilitate an opportunity for development and competitive pay rates. Consequently, the rate of teacher turn- over in the education sector continues to be high.

Further more, this results into insufficient remuneration of staff. It is unfortunate that teachers who are key in the provision of education services in these institutions have continued to be poorly paid. This has led to loss of motivation, teaches us the feelings of an unsatisfied need causes tension and an individual takes action to reduce tension. That is why teachers strikes and demonstrations have continued to be the norm of expressing displeasure leading to loss of money, time and property in worst scenarios. The most undesirable consequences of these strikes is the culture of violence that has been entrenched in the products of these institutions as manifested in the way citizens express their concerns through violent demonstrations and strikes. Also brain drain has undermined the overall quality of the human resources in the country because the ones who normally emigrate are more productive than those who stay in the country (Okurut, 2001: 71).

Another factor that affects efficiency of education is the rapid expansion of student/pupil enrolment due to Universal Primary Education (UPE) and Universal Secondary Education (USE). The challenge that this causes is the increasing number of students with limited resources like text books, classrooms, laboratory space and equipment. The text book student ratios in most of the education institutions leaves a lot to be admired. So leadership with no option apart from struggling to cope with surging numbers in the face of declining funding at all levels ( Kasozi, 2003).

7.9 Reasons why Boarding Schools perform better than Day schools.

- Students have sufficient time to interface with teachers and for private study.
- Students are assured of meals. In times of food scarcity, children who come from day schools go to school on empty stomachs.
- Teachers are motivated to work through incentives. Boarding schools have more resources to facilitate running of school activities.
- Psychological effects such as domestic violence affect the performance of day scholars.
- Students in the boarding section concentrate on book work while day scholars have a lot domestic chores to attend to at home.
- There is a high possibility of conducting remedial lessons since there is ample time.
- In boarding schools parents tend to pay more attention to their children. They like attending to pertinent issues of children welfare through meetings and this improves academic performance

7.10 Reasons for poor performance on the subjects that are not done very well.

- Absenteeism on both sides of the learners and the teachers.
- Lack of syllabus coverage and therefore learners have no enough content to answer the set questions.
- A situation where continuous assessment is not taken seriously and teachers do not use specific assessment tools to help learners in their areas of weakness.
- Absenteeism of head teachers that jeopardizes the monitoring and evaluation. In this case syllabus coverage is affected.
- Parents’ failure to provide children with the basics of food, scholastic materials. Children fail to catch up with their counterparts who have better treatment and facilitation.
- Lack of enough reference books, and basic infrastructure such as libraries and laboratories.
- Lack of language command. This is especially so with children from rural areas that has little command of English language a medium of communication when they are answering questions.
- Late release of capitation grants by government negatively affects academic performance due to poor facilitation of staff.
- Low motivation to staff. This is evidenced in the little pay and the ever grumbling of teachers every now and then.
- Lack of proper supervision and monitoring of education programs.

CHAPTER EIGHT CONSELING AND GUIDANCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS.

This program helps and aids students to acquire knowledge, interpersonal skills, moral skills, develops career knowledge, good teacher- pupil relationship that helps the learner to learn properly while at school as well as having a healthy and productive lifestyle and being relevant to the society.

Guidance and counseling helps to;

- Improve teacher- pupil relationship.
- Reduce strikes and riots.
- Keep record of students’ progress.
- Reduce student psych- social problems such as early pregnancies, sexual abuse, and drug abuse.
- Improve discipline.
- Improve academic performance.
- Develop counseling skills through peer counseling.
- Reduce on corporal punishment.
- Develop a friendly learning environment

illustration not visible in this excerpt

MOE: 2007 Guidance and Counseling Guideline.

8.1.Career /Vocational guidance.

Is a type guidance where learners are given a focus on what they are able out of the very many career choices that are available to them.

Advantages of Career/ Vocational Guidance.

- It aids the learners to identify their strengths and weaknesses. This helps them to cope with challenges and dynamics of the surrounding environment.
- It enables the learners to identify the new environment. This is possible through career talk, teacher hand- outs, tour to some places and workshops.
- It helps learners to enhance career decision making skills. This is possible through drama, use of resource persons
- It aids learners to develop a list of personal career dreams and interests. Learners are able to make informed choices basing on interest and ability. A guided discussion and information sharing is very essential.
- Learners are able to relate the career information to the subjects being done. It is advisable to always provide course outlines, career information materials.
- It assists learners to relate subjects to personal abilities. Use of role models and the disadvantaged motivates learners to set goals and keep focused.

8.2. Personal guidance.

Different learners have different individual differences. This requires insstructors to develop personal attributes and values so as to make learners to achieve their emotional, academic, and socio- economic goals.

Advantages of Personal Guidance.

- Helps learners to keep in good physical health and this helps them to live a healthy and dignified life. This can be achieved through sensitization, role playing desired behavior, talking environment, debate, and guided discussions.
- Students are able to express their feelings and thoughts. This can be achieved through engagement in hobbies and interests, activities and games, and sharing experiences.
- It equips learners with communication skills and other related skills such as public talking and administration. This is achieved through group debates, giving speech, role play, and drama.
- It equips learners with the skills of self- knowledge and this helps them to appreciate their uniqueness.
- It helps to prevent risky behavior and provides interventions for social anti- behavior. This can be achieved through role- playing of desired behavior and self- appraisal activities
- It helps to demystify the adolescents’ myths. They come to understand issues of hormonal changes, sex and sexuality.
- It helps students to come to terms with all their body parts. This helps to narrow down issues of sex deviations: Masturbation, homosexuality, lesbianism and incest.
- It assists to provide Godly principles that will protect the young from unhealthy relationships.
- It helps students to accept those with problems and therefore be able to freely associate with them.
- It helps students to overcome rudeness, aggressiveness, and shyness. This is achieved through debates, songs, poems, self- assessment, and use of role models.

8.3. Spiritual guidance.

Good values and morals are an important aspect in society. It is therefore issential to train learners on good discipline background so as to yield better fruits for the community and this calls for spiritual guidance.

Advantages of Spiritual Guidance Counseling.

- It helps students to respect national morals and values. This helps to improve relationships with staff, teachers, administrators, students and community.
- It helps to make students to be responsible citizens. This helps to care for other people and how effectively and efficiently utilize the resources around them.
- It helps students to develop faith, trust and confidence in God. They are taught aspects of love, forgiveness and self- acceptance.
- It guides students to be custodians and partners of spiritual values. This helps students to relate with different stakeholders in the system. It also encourages moral uprightness.
- It helps students to develop a positive attitude towards work. They are made aware of their roles and responsibilities. It assists students to acquire daily school routine.
- It helps learners to develop the spirit of honesty and faithfulness. This helps the learners to develop stable families in future.
- It helps children to discover the value of respecting parents, elders and authorities. They are able to develop the values of forgiveness, patience and tolerance.
- It encourages girls’ active participation and also helping learners to know the gender roles. Helps girls to live and work under multicultural environment with confidence and high esteem.
- It helps a learner to discover that he/she is a unique and special creation. This helps the learner to develop self- confidence and self- motivation for successful performance.

8.4. Social and psychological guidance.

Man has always had inherent problems which affects his behavior in a negative manner. Learners have to always be followed according to their behavioral changes from time to time so that proper guidance is given.

Advantages of Social and Psychological Guidance.

- It helps the learner to well manage the challenges of growth and development such as adolescence. This can be achieved through peer teaching, group discussion and guidance and counseling.
- It helps students to overcome anti- social behaviors and to be aware of these anti- social behaviors. These are delinquencies, drugs and alcohol abuse and theft.
- To enable children to associate freely and effectively with other members of society. This helps the young ones to adjust to the new environment.
- It helps children appreciate being a sex being and sexually endowed with a responsibility in society. Students’ awareness of sex and sexuality, stages of growth and development, proper direction of personal sexual desires and emotion are important for their entire lifestyle.
- It helps students to positively relate the school rules with their culture. Helps students on matters of cultural values and cultural evolution, cultural integration, positive and negative cultural values, overcoming cultural fears and substitutions, beliefs and biases. This can be achieved through cultural performances, cultural week, cultural heritage and drama.
- It helps students to smoothly focus on studies despite challenges such as stress. This helps learners to be aware of the available services when they are faced with stress.
- Help the student to cope with internal emotional conflicts and these help learners to easily settle in a new school. Students’ awareness of crisis and trauma, transition (primary to secondary) is very important for their emotional stability in school.
- It helps students to be aware of gender issues and how to disregard negative beliefs on gender roles. This can be achieved through encouraging gender equality, equal opportunities, compulsory science subjects and group discussions.
- Helps students to overcome stressful situations. This can be through self and time management both with class work and co- curricular activities.

8.5. Education guidance.

A school environment and school culture play an important role in the academic life of the learner. New students at school have to be initiated to the school systems so that they are able to develop self motivated in all school activities.

Advantages of Education Guidance.

- To help learners develop a sense of pride and identity for their school. This can be achieved through guided tour of the school, general school assembly and entertainment.
- To guide learners to develop a sense of being responsible and having self- motivation to study. This is done through displaying study skills to them such as developing personal timetable and talks on self- motivation.
- Helps students to manage their time effectively which help students to be disciplined and orderly. Student can be guided through developing personal time table and through effective ways of making and taking lesson notes.
- Helps students to make up summaries of what they have read. This helps them to read and retain information. It prepares learners for a successful performance.
- Helps students to acquire a reading culture through attainment of reading skills, scanning and skimming. This helps students to keep focused as they cherish their goals.
- Helps learners to develop problem solving skills as well as critical thinking technics. Learners are able to develop communication and entrepreneurial skills.
- Help learners to develop study skills through utilization of study groups, guided discussions and practicing sitting of examinations. Helps in preparation of examinations and guides students through ethical ways of sitting examinations.

CHAPTER NINE TEACHING ABOUT HIV/AIDS.

It is important to encompass HIV/AIDS on the existing school curriculum. This would cover issues such as life skills, spread of HIV, how to care for patients suffering from HIV and AIDS. This can help to change behavior and attitude with the good knowledge background of this disease. This would also strengthen Uganda’s education system as well as encouraging school communities to participate in HIV prevention efforts.

Teaching about HIV and AIDS requires a multiple of approaches and allowing enough time for developing of life skills that will enable the population to change attitudes and behaviors.

A lot of information generated on HIV and AIDS relates to general life skills. Acquisition of life skills empowers one to have greater control over his/ her own life by:

- Promoting and encouraging health behavior.
- Delaying early sex and pregnancies.
- Avoiding the risky behavior to avoid HIV, AIDS and STI transmissions.
- Building positive self- concept and self- esteem.

Empowers the girl/ boy child to positively and effectively assert him/herself when confronted with difficult situations. It promotes participatory teaching/ learning methods which improve the academic performance. It enhances teacher job satisfaction.

It is important in classroom practice all teachers should focus on HIV and AIDS, as it affects all parts of life. When AIDS is discussed repeatedly, the young people will gradually realize its dangers, so they will slowly build up good and clear understanding of the epidemic and how it affects young people’s relationships and their health lifestyles. A multiple of approaches such as stories, role plays, debate, drama, creative writing, and discussions will help children to avoid risky behavior.

Adolescents and children need to be supported in order to practice their decision and communication skills. They have a tendency of giving in to tempting situations in form of drugs, alcohol, gifts. They can be empowered to overcome most of these obstacles hence a successful behavior for healthy lives.

The following methods can be used to empower these children and adolescents;

- Written activities; in form of essay writing, poems, songs, plays, articles, diary entries, interviews and dialogues.
- Graphic activities in form of; illustrations, puzzles, games, cartoons, charts, posters, and photographs.
- Audio- visual activities in form of; photographs or pictures with commentary, slides with commentaries and videos.
- Oral activities in form of; debates, dialogues, talk shows, reports, interviews and panel discussions.
- Organizing tours and visits to community based organizations so that they are able to talk with people living with HIV and those affected by HIV.
- A volunteer sharing personal live experience with the rest of the school e.g. on World AIDS day.
- Organizing and conducting HIV testing sessions after thorough education and mobilization.
- Inviting an HIV and AIDS counselor to talk to students about important issues pertaining HIV/AIDS. This minimizes on the rotational myths about HIV in society.
- Regularly talking about HIV for instance on assemblies. Helps learners to understand circumstances that are risky to their lives.
- Physical Education and Sports help the youth to expend their energies. These disciplines are also used to encourage development of values among children and adolescents.
- Use of creative arts where the children and adolescents are able to express emotions and ideas.
- Community activities. Can be done through music, dance, drama and campaigns with HIV/AIDS messages.

8.1 Strategies to improve health in classroom situation.

1. Transmission of HIV and HIV prevalence are some of the concepts to develop at this stage. Correct information about HIV and AIDS must be factually or scientifically clear and straight forward. It is important to give specific and concrete examples. Teachers are in the right position to use this opportunity to explain how a healthy immune system functions as well as the chief determinants of epidemic level in society. They have to make the explanations concrete by using stories and materials that make it easier for learners to understand.
2. Teachers should more importantly make an inventory of what leaners know, including what they have heard, what they have seen and what they think they know. This helps them to draw a feasible action plan with proper documentation. This helps you to decide on what is relevant to the specific group of learners so that you can disapprove or expand on what they already know. This helps to create youth oriented programs. Can be taught about dangers of cultural norms polygamy, wife inheritance that increase HIV prevalence.
3. A useful way of introduction of the concept of prevention and care services to children is concentrating on general strategies to improve health care and therefore indirectly to prevent illness. Such an approach focuses on principles of hygiene and improved healthy life- style.
4. It is important to prevent formation of myths by explaining to learners how they will get AIDS. You have to use examples from their everyday experience. Some of these examples refer to matters that worry them.
5. You have to try to prevent the formation of prejudice. Language is a very powerful tool that can be used to change behavior and should be used wisely. Don’t for example refer to ‘risk groups’ rather risky behavior’. Make it as impacting as possible and stress the fact that any person of any race, sex, religion, occupation or status can get HIV/AIDS.
6. Strengthen the values, awareness and the love and security inherent in the family. Teach learners to know their worth and this helps them to respect their own bodies as well as those of other people. It is important teach learners to take responsibility of their own behavior and be made to know that all behavior has consequences. This promotes information, education and communication to the entire society.
7. Concentrate on life- skills training such as those related to preventive health information, hygiene, nutrition, positive self- concept, self- efficacy, assertiveness, handling of peer pressure, decision making. Sexual empowerment of women and girls can be enhanced through educational and economic interventions to have a strong family unit that can reliably oppose the threat of HIV/AIDS.
8. Learners must understand clearly what can pause risk to their lives. One should establish an increased awareness that leads to reduction in risky behavior through delay in sexual debut, increased condom use, and abstinence.

CHAPTER NINE. RECOMMENDATIONS.

Managers in educational institutions should be creative enough so that there is efficient leadership. They should be able to come up with creative solutions to provide viable solutions to the education sector. Creative leaders use brainstorming method of approach in which stakeholders generate a large number of ideas and this increases efficiency and variability in school operating mechanisms.

Managers and leaders in academic institutions should be inspirational so as to build capacity among the staff and learners. The dynamic inspiration of leaders should be enthusiastic, uplifting, positive and optimistic. They should be assertive and confident while managing education institutions. There should be effective communication and delegation policies for a productive leadership

Good pay or reward given to workers in education institutions promotes efficiency and has a stabilization effect on labor performance in education institutions. This could be in form of salaries, and fringe benefits like free housing, health care, pension schemes, office accommodation and facilities which indicate certain level of status, telephone bills, or further educational courses have a significance effect on performance and efficiency since such benefits tend to “trap” employees at places of work.

Well- defined promotional practices where teachers, lecturers and tutors expect promotion continue to be positive with a hope of earning promotion at a later date and this promotes efficiency and effectiveness. When promotion is regular as expected, internal staff will be committed and productive and this promotes hard work as well as reducing indiscriminate counterproductive behavior. Career aspirations and a well- designed policy are fundamental for professional development of staff members.

A favorable political environment through laws, government agencies, and lobbying groups affects curriculum delivery and management of education programs. There should be more government support politically and economically by providing text books, recruiting well and enough trained staff not forgetting providing a structural framework for human power planning.

Goals and objectives of each educational institution should be clearly set, implemented and maintained. All stakeholders have to be mindful of goals of education institutions because this will ease planning and decision making. Teachers tend to be central in school activities. They should therefore be highly involved while planning.

There should be quality service through assessment and monitoring of the learning and teaching process. Carrying out more periodic inspection to ensure the set standards are met is very fundamental. Re- setting standards and guidelines can always help the system to have better curriculum reforms for the good of community development.

Effective communication is fundamental towards objective realization in school system. There should be good channels of communication from top to bottom and bottom up channels so that every stakeholder is always carrying on the vision of the institution. Effective communication helps to demonstrate principles that are congruent with the institutions core values.

There should be persistent adoption of appropriate technology because technology is a critical factor that affects stakeholders and it can have an impact on performance. Technology enables greater productivity and efficiency which are necessary for higher education outputs.

There should be changes in educational model. Modern teaching and learning approaches to enable development of critical, creative thinking and problem- solving should be integrated. Teaching and learning should be more active so that learners can easily connect the experiences to real life. Teaching and learning should be designed with students so as to develop the unique abilities and corresponding expectations should be well defined.

There should be knowledge transfer and social responsibility. Learning experiences should anticipate social needs through appropriate knowledge transfer mechanisms to allow society relevance among generations. Learners must not be detached from what they do on daily basis as expected by society.

Parent’s involvement in the school affairs is so paramount and this calls for an active role of the Parents Teachers Associations ( PTA). Mobilizing parents/the community to have their children in schools until they complete the primary cycle other than looking at them as a source of labor and dowry.

There is need to all government agencies, civil society organizations and development partners to monitor and oversee the proper utilization of capitation grant and other school resources. In a situation of lack of scholastic materials, these should be provided to make teaching and learning more effective.

Capacity gaps in education should be addressed. These include with the Ministry of Education liaising with the Ministry of Public Service, Finance and Economic Planning to have salaries of teachers raised to meet the high cost of living, equipping schools with basic scholastic materials, and releasing capitation grants in time. Parent’s role to provide students with lunch and break tea should be introduced because it is very difficult for teachers to handle hungry learners.

Effective policies and practices transparency are desirable. Pupils and staff should be positively involved in planning and decision making. Consultation with all heads of departments, prefects and parents in order to meet curriculum and organizational needs is essential. The whole system of allocation of resources should be well known and understood by staff and entire stakeholders.

Recognition of care and guidance for the student’s awareness of rights and responsibilities of individuals and groups in a pluralist society. It should be well stated in the curriculum objectives. Developing instruments for recording students’ progress on academic and non- academic aspects is an important idea for upbringing children in the school system. This has been lacking in most schools especially the day rural.

Collaborating and networking with other schools both nationally and internationally, seeking new knowledge and skills will lead to improved learning outcomes. This also helps to prepare learners for a global outfit.

References.

Abdulkareem, A.Y. (1997). Follow- up study on primary Education Cost, Financing Management in Kogi, Kwara and Niger States and the FCT. National Primary Education Commission Project.

Adam, Cathy L and Dale. E (2003). Urban Education; a reference book

Adelek, T.O.(2001). Student Teachers’ Perception and Attitude towards Teaching in the primary school. B.Ed. Thesis, University of Ibadan.

Adetoro, E.J (1996). Handbook on Education in Nigeria. Ibadan: African Education Press.

Akinbote O. (2000). Problems of Poor Quality inPrimary School Teachers Preparatipon: A study of Nigeria’s College Education. African Journal of Education Planning and Policy Studies 1(1) 33- 39.

Akinbote O.(2001). The Nigerian Primary School Teachers: Angels of Instruction or devils of destruction? Ibadan: Ibadan University Press.

Akinbote O. (2007). Problems of Teachers Education for Primary Schools in Nigeria. In A.O Ajaji and I.A Akinwumiju (Eds) Personnel Perfoormance and Capacity Building. Department Educational Mannagement, University of Ibadan.

Alebiosu, A.A.(2003). Curriculum innovation and Challenges for Nigerian Education.

Altinyelken, H.K.(2010). Curriculum Change in Uganda. Teacher perspective on new thematic curriculum. International Journal of educational development 30, pp151- 161

Altinyelken,H.K.(2010). Pedagogical renewal in Sub- Sahara: the case of Uganda, 46(2). 151- 171.

Amukobole, Micah.(2012). Character Centred Leadership: Principles and practices of effective leading. Nairobi: Evangel Publishing House.

Arbeiter,S.,& Harley,S.(2002). Teachers and Pupils Experiences in Integrated Education in Uganda. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 49(1), 61- 78.

Atchoarena et al (2003). Education and rural development: setting framework. In D. Atchoarena and L Gasperini (eds). Education for rural development: towards new policy responses. International Institute of Educational Planning FAO/UNESCO pp 35- 76.

Avenstrup,R et al (2004). Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi and Uganda: Universal Primary Education and Poverty Reduction. Case study from Reducing Poverty, Sustaining Growth, What Works, What does’nt and Why. A Global Exchange for Scaling Up Success. Scaling Up Povery Reduction: A Global Learning Process and Conference Shanghai.

Bantwini, B.D.(2010). How teachers perceive the new curriculum reform: Lessons from a school district in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. International Journal of Educational Development, vol.30 pp 83- 90.

Braslavsky. C.(2002). The New Century Change. New Challenges and Curriculum Responses. COBSE- Internal conference. New Delhi.

Bruns, B.,etal(2003). Achieving Universal Primary Education by 2015: A chance for every child. Washington D.C. The World Bank.

Carnoy. M.(1999). Globalization and Educational Reform. What Planners need to know. UNESCO.

Chan. J.K.S.(2010). Teachers’ response to curriculum policy implementation: colonial constraints for curriculum reform. Educational Research for Policy and Practice, Vol 9 pp 93- 106

Chisholm, L.and R.Leyendecker (2008). Curriculum reform in post- 1990s sub- saharan Africa. International Journal of Educational Development, Vol.28, pp 195- 205

Cunningham,W.C and Cordeiro,P.A.(2000). Educational administration: a problem based approach. New York: Allyn and Bacon.

Deininger,K.(2003). Does cost of schooling affect enrolment by the poor? Universal Primary Education in Uganda. Economics of Education Review.Vol.22, pp 291- 305.

DES- Directorate of Education Standards (2012) Annual report: Enhancing skills and learning outcomes. DES, Ministry of Education and Sports (not published).

Durosaro, D.O.(2006). Critical Issues in the management of primary education in Nigeria, IIIorin: University of IIIorin

Education Standards Agency , ESA (2004). Report on monitoring learning achievements in lower primary. Kampala: Education Standards Agency.

Ekaju, J.(2011). An Investigation into the Relationship Between the 1997 Universal Primary Education Policy and Regional Poverty and Educational Inequalities in Uganda. PhD Thesis.

Enobakhare, G.N.I (1971). How shall we educate Nigeria. London Macmillan.

Fullan,M.G (1991). The New Meaning of Educational Change. Teachers College Press: New York.

Gibbs,G.,(1992). Improving the quality of student learning. Bristol: Technical Education Services.

GPE- Global Partnership for Education (2012). Results for Learning Report 2012: Fostering Evidence- Based Dialogue to Monitor Access and Quality in Education. Washington DC.

Grogan, L.(2009). Universal Primary Education and School Entry in Uganda. Journal of African Economies, Vol.18 No.18- 2,pp183- 211.

Hoy,W.K amd Miskel C.G (2008). Educational administration, theory, research and practice, 8th edition.New York McGraw- Hill.

IOB (2011). Education matters: Policy review of the Dutch contribution to basic education 1999- 2009. IOB Evluation no.353. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, The Hague.

Kaheru, J.M.(2012). Participatory Needs Assessment Report of Namasale sub- county. Amolatar District. Draft Version for DevEd Section, Education Planning and Policy Analysis Department, MoES,Kampala,Uganda.

Kasozi , A.B.K (2003). University Education in Uganda. Fountain Publishers: Kampala.

Koech (2000). The Total Integrated Quality Education and Training Report (Koech report) Nairobi; Government White Paper.

Kyaka,A (2012). Guidelines for Universal Post- O Level Education and Training (Upolet). Journal of Guidance & Counselling, Vol.4, Issue 4.

Liberman, M. ( 1956). Education as a Profession. New Jersy: Prentice Hall.

Maicibi, Nok, Alhas (2013). The Managers’ Companion and Manual. Fountain Publishers: Kampala.

Mazrui, A.A (1978). Political Values and the Educated Class in Africa.Berkey, C.A University of California Press.

MoES (2011). Uganda Educational Statistical Abstract. Statistics Section, Education, Planning and Policy Analysis Department, MoES, Kampala, Uganda.

Ministry of Education and Sports,(2007). National Guidelines for Post Primary Institutions.

Ministry of Education & Sports (2004). Education Planning Department; Education Sector Strategic Plan.

Ministry of Education & Sports (1989). Education Policy Review Commission Report. Kampala.

Mkapa.

Mlama,P.,Marema,D., Nyoni,F.(2005). Epowering the youth through TUSEME.University of Dar es salaam. Tanzania.

Moja,T.(2000). Nigeria Education Sector Analysis: An analysis synthesis of performance and main issues. NewYork: World Bank.

Mullingan,D.,& Kirkpatrick, A.(2000). How do we understand? Lectures, students and comprehension, Higher Education Research and Development, 19(3), 311- 335

Nanyonjo.H.(2007). Human Development in Uganda. Opportunities and Challenges towards policy Agenda DRAFT concept note.

National Curriculum Development Centre (2012). A competence- based teaching snd learning approach in O’level curriculum in Uganda. Kampala: Uganda.

Nishimura, M.,T.Yamano &Y.Sasaoka (2008). Impacts of Universal Primary Education Policy on Educational attainment and private costs in rural Uganda. International Journal of Education Development. Vol.28,pp268- 285.

Oghuvu,E.P.(2011). Implementation of the primary school curriculum modules in Niger: the role of supervision Abraka; Kamla- Ray Anthropologist 13(2)147- 150.

Olaniyan, D.A & Obadara, E.O.(2004). A Critical Review of management of primary schools in Nigeria, Ibadan: University of Ibadan Press.

Onah,J.N(1998) Problems and prospects of primary education in Nigeria. In A.B.C. Ugwa, (Ed.). Introduction to Primary Education Studies. Enugu: Dona prints Ltd.

Owiny, Charles, Dickens.(1983). Educational Administration. Institute of Teacher Education Kyambogo: Kampala.

Penny.M (2006). Planning and Teaching Creativity within a Required Curriculum for School Age Laerners 700 South Washington Suite Zoo.

Read, T.,Enyutu,S.,(2005). Road map for implementation of the curriculum reforms recommended by the primary curriculum review report and approved by the Ministry of Education & Sports. Final revised version, Kampala.

Rogan,J.M.(2007). How Much Curriculum Change is Appropriate? Defining a Zone of Feasible Innovation. Science Education Policy,Vol.91.No3 pp439- 460.

Rutaagi R.(1992). Management of Public Enterprises in Uganda. Kampala.

Shiundu.S.etal (1992). Curriculum Theory and Practice in Kenya Nairobi; Oxford University Press.

Sofalahan.J.A.O (1987). National Workshop on Continuous Assessment in Primary Schools and writing of National Curriculum Modules held in Port Harcourt.

Smith M.K (1996). Curriculum theory and practice. The encyclopedia of informal education.

Spady, W. and Marshall, K.(1991). Beyond traditional outcome- based education. Educational Leadership. 49(2): 67- 72.

Thompson and Strickland (1987). Strategic Management. Irwin.

UBOS- Uganda Bureau of Statistics (2010). Uganda National Household Survey 2009- 2010. Socio Economic Module. UBOS, Kampala, Uganda.

UNAIDS (2009). HIV Prevention Response and Modes of Transmission Analysis. Kenya.

UNATU (2015). The Voice of the Teachers. unpublished)

UNEB- Uganda National Examinations Board (2011). National Assessment Progress in Education. The Achievement of Primary School Pupils in Uganda numeracy, literacy and oral reading. UNEB. Kampala, Uganda.

UNESCO (2010). Reaching the marginalized. EFA Global Monitoring Report 2010. Oxford University Press.

UNESCO (2009). EFA Global Monitoring Report 2009. Overcoming inequality why government matters. Paris: UNESCO & Oxford University Press.

University of Zimbabwe (1995). Curriculum implementation, change and innovation. Module EA3AD303. University of Zimbabwe: centre for distance education.

UNESCO (2005). The Quality Imperative. EFA Global Monitoring Report 2005. UNESCO, Paris, France.

UNESCO (2001). Primary Education: The core of Development and Progress. UNESCO Education webmaster.

Urevbu,A.(1990).Curriculum Studies. Lagos Longman Pub.

Ward,M.,Penny, A., Read.T (2006). Education Reform in Uganda 1997 to 2004: Reflections on Policy, Partnership Strategy and Implementation. DFID,London.

World Bank (2003). School Education in Nigeria: Preparing for Universal Basic Education, (Human Development II, African Region).