UNIVERSITY OF KISUBI

FACULTY

EDUCATION

COURSE UNIT

COLLABORATIVE CURRICULUM

LECTURERS NAME

MRS FELISTUS APIO

NAME

NKOYOYO EDWARD

REGISTRATION NUMBER

14BSCED0992

E-mail

e.nkoyoyo@kbuc.ac.ug

Tev.no

+256777169712

DATE OF SUBMISSION

8TH FEBRUARY 2016

TASK

ANALYSIS THE CURRENT REFORMED CURRICULUM OF THE

LOWER SECONDARY

INTRODUCTION
curriculum refers to the lessons and academic content taught in a school or in a specific course
or program. In dictionaries, curriculum is often defined as the courses offered by a school, but it
is rarely used in such a general sense in schools. Depending on how broadly educators define or
employ the term, curriculum typically refers to the knowledge and skills students are expected to
learn, which includes the learning standards or learning objectives they are expected to meet; the
units and lessons that teachers teach; the assignments and projects given to students; the books,
materials, videos, presentations, and readings used in a course; and the tests, assessments, and
other methods used to evaluate student learning.
A new curriculum has been designed for S1 S4. This will give learners the knowledge and
skills needed for success in modern society and lay a firm foundation for the world of work, selfemployment and further education.
The new curriculum for Lower Secondary will have eight (8) Learning Areas Creative Arts,
Languages, Life Education, Mathematics, Religious Education, Science, Social Studies and
Technology and Enterprise. All Learning Areas will be compulsory at S1- S4.
The National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) has finalized the new O level
curriculum which will be launched in 2017.
The new curriculum has reduced the subjects taught in lower secondary form 43 to 8 core
learning areas. The new curriculum replaces the term subjects with learning areas
Learning areas include Creative Arts, Mathematics, Science, Religious Education, Social
Studies, Technology and Enterprise, Life education, and Languages. While Kiswahili and
English have been made compulsory.
Mathias Mulumba, the coordinator of the lower secondary reform program me said Kiswahili
will make Ugandans competitive in the fast integrating East African community.
Students will also choose an additional language out of the approved foreign and local dialects.

The optional languages include Luganda, Lugbara, Acholi, Langi, Lusoga, Runyankole-Rukiga,
Ateso, Latin, Arabic, French and German.
Importance of the current curriculum for the lower secondary
The new curriculum is intended to equip students with practical skills in order to make them
productive for the dynamic market.
The new curriculum is intended to provide a holistic education which can promote critical
thinking, creativity, numeracy, interpersonal skills, professional mannerism and innovation
among students.
If the new curriculum is implemented, Students will find themselves in a new physical
environment. The classroom is new, most of the classmates are strangers, and the centre of the
teacher is a stranger too. The structured way of learning is also new. If, in addition to these
things, there is a rapid change in the language of interaction, then the situation can get quite
difficult. However, by using the learners home language, schools can help student find the way
the new environment and bridge their learning at school with the experience they bring from
home.
Second, by using the learners home language, learners are more likely to engage in the learning
process. The interactive learner-centered approach recommended by all educationalists thrives in
an environment where learners are adequately capable in the language of instruction. It allows
learners to make suggestions, ask questions, answer questions and create and communicate new
knowledge with interest hence gives learners confidence and helps to affirm their cultural
identity.
The new curriculum is intended to equip participate effectively in political, social, economic,
scientific and technological development. Thus effectively progress to the world of making a
living, work in paid employment and/or progress to Business, Technical, Vocational Education
and Training Institutions, Tertiary and Higher Education and Training.

If the new curriculum is implemented, a learner who knows how to read and write in one
language will develop reading and writing skills in a new language faster. The learner already
knows that letters represent sounds, the only new learning he or she needs is how the new
language sounds its letters. In the same way, learners automatically transfer knowledge
acquired in one language to another language as soon as they have learned sufficient vocabulary
in the new language.
The new curriculum is intended to encourage learners to be independent, to explore the
environment beyond the classroom and to acquire a range of generic skills.\
Develops problem-solving skills, with the knowledge of science, students learn to think logically
and solve a problem. It is this problem-solving skill; it will enable a student to solve problems
that is to say Communications, medicine, transportation where by individuals have used their
knowledge of science to create real life applications hence Knowledge in this science subject
will also enables them to understand many other subjects better.
If the new curriculum is implemented beneficiaries will leave school with integrity and honesty,
positive attitude to work and respect for human right, tolerance of difference as well as peaceful
and harmonious values.
If the new curriculum is implemented, the new curriculum is proposed to provide holistic
education that does not emphasis passing exams but one that helps students to be useful to
themselves and their society
If the new curriculum is implemented, Math specialist, Mathematics subject will now
concentrate on the core skills to enable learners develop basic skills to apply in day to day life for
effective participation in social and economic life.
Awareness about technology, learning the basics of how certain devices work can help a student
develop ideas of their own and invent new technology. Even the knowledge of how to use
telescopes, microscopes, and other devices in a laboratory can help him or her in examining

objects and determining differences between them hence fixing minor problems in electronic
objects in own home is possible when he or she have the basic knowledge about technology.
Instills survival skills, Science helps a student learn about the various weather conditions, and
helps you distinguish between normal weather and dangerous weather. With this knowledge, a
student can stay prepared about natural disasters hence learning the characteristics of different
objects that you use in his or her day-to-day life
It keeps kids out of trouble. If the new curriculum is implemented, for schools worried about
disciplining children in the classroom, religion can help students with behaviors to change
through listening to the stories in Bible thus becoming a responsible student.
It helps students learn a bit more about them. If the new curriculum is implemented, Religious
classes will have a significant amount of benefits, including that they help kids learn more
internally about themselves and how they feel about God and religion. This helps them move
past those questions and identity crises.
If the new curriculum is implemented, the creative arts also provide learners with non-academic
benefits such as promoting self-esteem, motivation, aesthetic awareness, cultural exposure,
creativity, improved emotional expression, as well as social harmony and appreciation of
diversity.
However side, if the new curriculum is implemented, the following are negative side of the
new curriculum
Use of the learners home language at the start of school also lessens the burden on teachers,
especially where the teacher speaks the local language well where both the teacher and the
learner are non-native users of the language of instruction, the teacher struggles as much as the
learners, particularly at the start of education.
Another thing to consider is that only recently having religious teaching began to be so weak,
misconstrued and use to mislead the population that is to say I am referring to the multitude of

new religious. Also, in my opinion, there is also much less faith now than it the previous
centuries. Adding to this are the modern practices of religious studies and religious fanatics and
thus religion becomes a very complex and difficult to understand topic.
But when learners start school in a language that is still new to them, it leads to a teachercentered approach and reinforces passiveness and silence in classrooms. This in turn suppresses
young learners potential and liberty to express them freely. It dulls the enthusiasm of young
minds, inhibits their creativity, and makes the learning experience unpleasant.

Religion promotes magical thinking as a "solution" to moral and ethical problems. That is, it
asserts that I am to believe such and so because "God said so." The conspicuous problem here is
that much of what is claimed as "Gods Holy Word" is actually just the historical musings of
powerful old men seeking more power over the serfs.

curriculum will develop the learning skills needed to ensure that all graduating students can think
critically and study effectively, that they possess the range of generic skills to be successful in
their personal and social lives, in making a living, and rendering them employable in the widest
sense.
Using IT involves using more expensive resources more frequently than in
Other curricular activities. However, there is insufficient hardware in many
Schools for pupils to have access whenever they need it, and pupils may
have to share computers even in IT subject studies

3.2. Availability of resources/materials

In the context of learning activities involving the making of artefacts (for example during art and
design or design and technology) there is strong evidence across a number of studies that

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