Schools to get 15m text books for new subjects

The target is to achieve a 1:3 textbook-to-learner ratio, Education ministry Spokesman Mr Dennis Mugimba said yesterday.

Thirteen suppliers have been contracted to take the final batch of Senior One and Two textbooks to the last mile while another 15 suppliers will haul maiden copies for Senior Three and Four students.

“These suppliers will be taking these textbooks to individual schools and sign delivery notes from the head teachers; so, no textbook is going at the district level. That’s why [distribution] will take two months,” Mr Mugimba said.

This is the first time that O-Level finalists and semi-finalists, who are pioneers and second intakes under the new curriculum revised in 2020, are receiving reading materials just like their teachers.

Of these, 8.6 million copies for 19 subjects are for Senior One and Two while Senior Three and Senior Four will in total get 6.9 million copies.

Purchase of the books, which include Teachers’ Guides, cost the taxpayer Shs63.6b, Mr Mugimba said, adding that the procurement is to ease implementation of the revised lower secondary school curriculum.

The National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) designed the new curriculum to change the method of knowledge delivery to practical skills development examinable at the end of Senior Three by the Directorate of Industrial Training (DIT).

Proponents say the idea was to ensure that an O-Level candidate leaves school after final papers with hands-on skills such as tailoring, catering and carpentry which they can use for self-development or to secure employment.

Under this curriculum, subjects for Senior One and Two were reduced from 43 to 21. Schools are now teaching 12 subjects in the first two O-Level classes, out of which 11 are compulsory while one is an elective.  Candidates and semi-candidates will no longer study a minimum of eight or a maximum of nine subjects with seven of them compulsory.

The government in February last year announced that it will distribute six million textbooks to 5,050 schools. Mr Mugimba said they managed to distribute a few books for Senior One and Two students, but encountered challenges of late release of funds and suppliers promising more than they could deliver.

Marathon learning

Unlike lower secondary students receiving final batch textbooks for the new curriculum, semi-candidates are getting the materials when already halfway through the year and months to candidate classes where they will be examined based on the content of the arriving books.

“For Senior One and Two, we are simply adding but for Senior Three, they were not available at all because when we launched the curriculum in 2020, the attention was on cohort; Senior One class of 2020 …,”  said Mr Mugimba.

Stakeholders in the sector including teachers, experts and school owners said the late distribution will affect the semi-candidates most due to its timing.

Mr Filbert Baguma, the secretary general of Uganda National Teachers’ Union (Unatu), said the late distribution is a “total mess up and makes teachers look stupid and useless”.

“We are now in term two and entering the last month to term three and you are talking of rolling out the distribution which will see other schools getting textbooks when we are going in holidays and yet you expect teachers to teach and students to pass with flying colours next year,” he said, cynically.

He added: “As we speak, some teachers are still doing guesswork and it is worse in rural areas; teachers who did not access publishers to buy some books. The entire process is a mess.”  

Mr Aaron Mugaiga, the president of the Uganda Professional Science Teachers Union (UPTSU), said the delayed distribution will impinge normal teaching and learning.

“We shall be forced to carry some work from Senior Three to first term of Senior Four because it is impossible to complete the syllabus of one year in less than a year, we shall make some adjustments and do our best,” he said.

Problems with the new curriculum are not new. Last month, the government paused implementation of the practical element of the new curriculum, which was due for final assessment by the DIT this year, following widespread complaints by teachers and schools that they lacked supporting resources and skills.

Mr Hasadu Kirabira, the chairperson of the National Private Education Institutions Association (NPEIA), said schools are likely to forego some activities on their calendars such as extra-curricular activities, to bridge the gap.

“Every school has to find ways of creating time without necessarily going beyond the stipulated time. For example, we urge head teachers to start classes as early as 7am [and] reduce on co-curricular activities because that’s the only time we have to ensure that our learners finish the syllabuses in the curriculum,” he said.

According to Kirabira, the late distribution of the texts books is a clear manifestation of the poor planning, “we have always talked about [regarding] the Ministry of Education”.

“We don’t see how such a serious programme that must run on time commence without learning materials, wasting time and creating double standards because right now we are running both a new and old curriculum,” he added.

Explanation

Following the successful rollout of the curriculum, the government in 2020 contracted 28 companies to print and distribute 1.5 million textbooks - 8.6 million for Senior One and Two and 6.9 million for Senior Three and Four - and their corresponding Teachers’ Guides at Shs63.6 billion.

Mr Mugimba explained that locally contracted companies turned to say they lacked the capacity to deliver, prompting them to outsource the content development and book printing to firms in Europe.

“After printing, the companies used sea after realising that [transportation by] air was, too expensive which led to the delays. So, you must know that there are those logistical delays on the side of publishers because of capacity issues,” he said.

He also revealed that the delayed formulation of the books and evaluation, accompanied by the late releases of funds by the government partly led to the delays.

“We did not have textbooks ready so we used the prototype by National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) as we waited for the writers to complete and remember we were in Covid-19 lockdown which restricted movements, yet these books are written by many writers and evaluated by a panel. Secondly, the economy was not performing well and the budget cuts affected us so much,” he said.

Responding to claims by the private sector that the government has prioritised public schools, Mr Mugimba said “all firms in this supply chain are supplying for both cohorts and in all districts”.

“There is no single company that have a contract for supplying textbooks for a single subject and likewise there is no single company supplying books for an entire district,” he added.

Compliment

Mr Fagil Mandy, a former commissioner at the Ministry of Education who has since turned a consultant, welcomed the initiative saying that the textbooks will help teachers and learners to understand the curriculum better.

“The time doesn’t matter, it is better off with the textbooks because teachers have been suffering, using the old curriculum but now it will be good for them,” he said, “The books will help the learners and teachers understand what they are doing instead of gambling.”

Mr Aaron Mugaiga, the president of the Uganda Professional Science Teachers Union (UPTSU), also said the initiative is good and will help them as teachers to up their game “…[and] we implore them to increase in the process to enable all teachers understand [the new curriculum]”.

[email protected]