Prime
Gov’t to release school calendar today
Primary Seven candidates of Main Street Primary School during a lesson in Jinja City last year. PHOTO/DENIS EDEMA
The Minister of Education, Ms Janet Museveni is today scheduled to release the revised schools calendar at State House to guide reopening of schools next year.
President Museveni gave a green light to tertiary institutions to reopen on November 1 while the rest, including secondary, primary and nursery resume in January 2022.
However, the Ministry of Education has to guide schools when they should reopen, how to reopen, which classes to report first and how long each term will last.
The Minister will also guide when candidates in primary seven, senior four and six will sit for their finals set by the Uganda National Examinations Board.
The Spokesperson of the Ministry of Education, Dr Denis Mugimba when asked about details of the new revised schools calendar yesterday said that Ms Museveni will unveil all these details today.
The Director of Education Standards, Dr Kendrace Turyagyenda, in one of her presentations said non candidate classes also be considered because they have spent a long time without attending classes.
Prior to closure of schools, P1-p3 pupils who had spent one year home had been lined up to return to schools but government closed schools a day before their return. These have now spent nearly two years at home following the second lockdown in June.
Equally, their counterparts in senior one and two had just reported back to schools for three weeks when President Museveni closed schools for the second time.
In an interview with Daily Monitor yesterday, the Chairperson of Uganda National Teachers’ Union (Unatu), Mr Filbert Baguma, said they expect the revised school calendar to take care of the time learners have spent out of schools.
Whereas government plans to automatically promote some learners to the next class to reduce congestion, Mr Baguma says learners should progress to the next class when at least acquainted with the content they did not cover.
Mr Baguma also suggested that the new curriculum should have short holidays for learners since they have already spent a lot of time home.
The Chairperson of the National Private Educational Institutions Association (NPEIA), Mr Hasadu Kirabira, on the other hand said that the new calendar should give schools a fresh year and recognize 2021 as a dead year.
“Since it is a new year and some children have spent a dead year home, we should plan afresh and proceed accordingly without getting confused. 2021 should be killed, and make 2022 a new year, have all students cover all their work and sit for end of year exams at the end,” Mr Hasadu said.
He also said that government should reopen for all learners and not in a phased manner, asserting that some learners can study in the morning while others can be scheduled for afternoon.
He also called for the training of teachers on the condensed curriculum before schools are reopened.
Government is in the final stages of completing the condensed curriculum to ensure that only core content is extracted from the current curriculum to form a bridged one.
