By Michael Tumwesigye
Poor planning and significant implementation gaps in Uganda’s new lower secondary Competence-Based Curriculum (CBC) have placed thousands of pioneer students at a considerable disadvantage in their national exams. Designed to foster practical skills and critical thinking, this curriculum marks a shift from traditional rote learning to a more holistic, skill-based approach.
However, due to insufficient preparation, inadequate teacher training and resource constraints, teachers, students and administrators have struggled to meet the curriculum’s standards, intensifying concerns that many students may not perform well in the recently concluded national exams. The CBC, implemented with a purpose of producing a workforce, capable of critical thinking and problem-solving, fell short in execution. According to the recent findings by Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) before rolling out examinations, a substantial gap existed between the curriculum’s expectations and the realities of classroom instruction.
Teachers, who were expected to transition to a learner-centered approach, often lacked the necessary training, with 89% of surveyed teachers reporting they hadn’t attended any formal CBC training. Many were left resorting to traditional teaching methods that contradict the CBC’s objectives. This lack of adequate teacher training disproportionately affected students in rural and low-income schools. Urban schools with better resources, libraries, ICT facilities, and access to supplementary materials, allowed students to adapt more effectively to the curriculum’s demands.
In contrast, many rural schools, underfunded and under-resourced, struggled to implement basic CBC requirements. In these settings, science labs were often makeshift and lacked necessary equipment, making hands-on, experiential learning nearly impossible. As a result, students in these areas faced challenges in meeting the curriculum’s expectations and preparing for its practical, skill-focused assessments. Further complicating matters, large class sizes undermined teachers’ abilities to provide individualized instructions, an essential aspect of the CBC.
In several schools, classrooms were overcrowded. Overwhelming class sizes restricted opportunities for personalized engagement, preventing students from fully understanding complex topics in critical thinking and analysis-skills central to the CBC. Without individualized support, many students struggled with the curriculum’s new demands, leaving them less prepared to demonstrate these competencies in exams.
Assessment practices further revealed a striking misalignment between the CBC’s goals and what is actually tested. Though the new curriculum emphasizes evaluating students’ higher-order thinking skills, most teachers continued to set assessments focused on rote memorization. Majority of teachers primarily used lower-order questions and outdated methods that did not foster critical analysis, despite the curriculum’s requirement for scenario-based, analytical questions.
Students themselves have voiced concerns about the curriculum, particularly noting that textbooks often contained narrow and ambiguous content. This material required for further independent research to understand fully, posed a challenge for students in schools lacking ICT resources or libraries. In some urban schools, students resorted to borrowing teachers’ phones, particularly those who did not have their own for research.
These disparities placed rural students at a particular disadvantage, as they were deprived of the same opportunities for independent learning and problem-solving, integral to success in the CBC’s exams. Implementation of the curriculum also posed additional difficulties for students with disabilities. While the CBC emphasizes inclusive learning, the absence of practical retooling programs limited teachers’ abilities to effectively support students with disabilities, placing these students at a unique disadvantage in both classroom learning and national exams.
The disparity between science and arts teachers’ salaries further affected CBC implementation. At the core of these challenges is inadequate funding to meet the CBC’s demands. The CBC requires project-based learning, regular assessments, and ICT support, elements that are often lacking in public schools. Limited government funding means schools cannot equip classrooms or provide sufficient materials, compromising students’ ability to meet the curriculum’s objectives. In response to these issues, government officials initiated remedial teacher training sessions, although their timing, close to the exam period, had limited
impact.
For students sitting for the 2024 national exams, these challenges have been starkly evident. In Geography, students were asked to analyze landscapes and apply skills in “Critical Knowledge,” “Critical Understanding,” and “Application to Daily Life,” while in Mathematics, they were tasked to numbers of “inscribing” or “circumscribing.” Even in subjects like History, differences in resource access affected students’ performance. Questions on parliamentary roles and leadership knowledge disadvantaged rural students who lacked access to media and reference materials that urban students might use.
This lack of exposure to basic civic knowledge exemplifies how systemic resource disparities continue to hinder equity in education and students’ academic readiness and equal opportunity.
Many teachers continue to face challenges in planning effective CBC lessons, raising questions about the long-term effectiveness of these interventions and the government’s commitment to addressing the curriculum’s critical requirements.
For the pioneer students navigating this new curriculum, these implementation gaps and resource disparities created an atmosphere of anxiety and uncertainty. Many students felt under prepared to tackle exams that assess competencies they didn’t fully acquire. As exams conclude, the risk of under performance looms, not as an indicator of students’ abilities but as a consequence of an education system that failed to deliver on its own goals. Without addressing these structural issues, the CBC may continue to produce a generation of students who are unprepared for both exams and the real-world demands it sought to address. Bridging these divides, whether in funding, teacher training, or resources, is essential to ensuring that the CBC fulfills its promise to Uganda’s youth.
THOUGH THE NEW CURRICULUM EMPHASIZES EVALUATING STUDENTS’ HIGHER-ORDER THINKING SKILLS, MOST TEACHERS CONTINUED TO SET ASSESSMENTS FOCUSED ON ROTE MEMORIZATION.
