New Curriculum

Uganda: New Curriculum Good, but Beware of Pitfalls

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Africa/Uganda/ 16.04.2018 / From: allafrica.com.

The government has rolled out a revised curriculum for Ordinary Level with ambitious reforms that have seen 20 subjects either dropped or consolidated with others to bring down the number of examinable units to 13. Even among the retained subjects, there have been changes. Topics that are deemed irrelevant have been scrapped.

Teachers have expressed reservations on the implementation of the curriculum, saying they were not consulted as the tail-end implementers, which may impede the execution and realisation of the objective.

 But that aside, the most critical reform in the new curriculum, which might bring more challenges than the intended good, is the change of grading system in the final Ordinary Level examinations for the lower secondary learners.

From: http://allafrica.com/stories/201804120152.html

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Kenia: Ministry defends rollout pace of new curriculum

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Kenia / 18 de octubre de 2017 / Por: PHILIP MUYANGA / Fuente: http://www.nation.co.ke/

The government has defended the new curriculum, saying it was validated at a national conference in January.

Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang, in an affidavit opposing a petition by a university lecturer, told a Mombasa court the conference on curriculum reforms was attended by various stakeholders.

Mr Eric Mugambi wants the Education ministry ordered to establish a national committee to lead the implementation of the new curriculum and manage transition from the current system.

POLICY
The PS said the implementation of the planned changes began in 2011 and that the Constitution and Vision 2030 blueprint necessitated the re-alignment of the education sector.

“In 2014, the government embarked on a consultative process of preparing a policy framework for curriculum review that culminated in the national curriculum policy,” he said.

He added that a national steering committee on curriculum reforms, which was appointed by the cabinet secretary in April last year, exists.

“The national steering committee on curriculum reforms consists of 36 members and a list is available on the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) website,” he said.

IMPLEMENTATION
On Monday, Mr Mugambi agreed to have his application, which seeks temporary orders restraining the ministry and KICD from implementing the planned changes, abandoned for the petition to be heard.

Through lawyer Augustine Wafula, KICD was directed to file and serve its response to the petition Wednesday.

Mr Mugambi, a lecturer at Technical University of Mombasa, argued that the six-year implementation period proposed is long as this can be achieved in four years.

EXAMS
The petitioner contended that the decision to eliminate individual student assessment using a national examination at the end of upper primary by Kenya National Examination Council should be withdrawn.

The petition will be heard on November 23.

Fuente noticia: http://www.nation.co.ke/news/education/Ministry-defends-rollout-pace-of-new-curriculum/2643604-4142432-82mrj5z/index.html

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Kenia: 170,000 teachers to be trained on new curriculum

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Kenia / 06 de septiembre de 2017 / Por: OUMA WANZALA / Fuente: http://www.nation.co.ke/

More than 170,000 teachers who will oversee the implementation of the new curriculum in January will be trained in two month’s time.

Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) Director Julius Jwan said the teachers will be trained in November and December.

Those to be trained are teachers handling nursery, and Class One to Three as the government embarks on competency-based curriculum.

“This term, based on our evaluation report, we cast the net wider to accommodate more teachers because so far, the feedback on the new curriculum is positive,” said Dr Jwan.

Dr Jwan revealed that printing of teacher’s guides, handbooks and pupils’ workbooks has been finalised. The workbooks will also be distribution to pupils with special needs.

SUPPORT MATERIALS

“The curriculum support materials will enrich teaching and learning. A teacher will facilitate learning by focusing more on what learners can perform and not just what they can remember,” he said.

The new system developed to replace the discredited 8-4-4 will fully be rolled out in Form Four by 2023.

Senior Deputy Director for Curriculum and Research Services Jacqueline Onyango said the curriculum designs that have been developed are comprehensive after they were revised to include emerging issues meant to improve learning.

“The curriculum designs provide suggested learning activities, teaching methodology, assessment, resources and time required to cover various topics, thus giving guidance for planning of lessons,” Ms Onyango said.

CURRICULUM DESIGNS

“The methodology of undertaking the activities, resources required and the time the activities will take must be clear in the curriculum designs,” she added.

The new curriculum emphasises on the 21st century skills that enhance graduates to acquire competence that will enable them to create jobs even as they seek to be employed. Piloting of the curriculum was concluded last term and took place in 470 schools.

According to the director, in 2019, the system will be rolled out in Standard Four to Six and in 2020, it will cover Standard Seven, Eight and Form One.

In 2021, it will be extended to Form Two while in the following year, it will cover Form Three.

Fuente noticia: http://www.nation.co.ke/news/education/170-000-teachers-to-be-trained-on-new-curriculum/2643604-4081548-s8mmidz/index.html

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Montenegro Education Council Members Resign, Learn Lesson About Plagiarism

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Montenegro/ August 30, 2017/ By: Alan Crosby/ Source: https://www.rferl.org

Montenegro’s National Education Council was set up to prepare a new curriculum for the country’s students. Apparently plagiarism wasn’t one of the lessons in the package of reforms.

The council recently published its long-awaited reforms ahead of the return of students to classes for the upcoming school year.

Within days, several experts from a 500-member panel in neighboring Croatia that had earlier drawn up a curriculum package to update that country’s education system recognized many of the changes.

In fact, they said, large parts of their work were plagiarized, some passages word for word, without attribution.

Three members of the council resigned on August 27 and said they would give back their salaries over the matter.

«If any child in the world benefits from our work, that’s good. What bothers me is the way it was done, without asking us as the authors, and without asking Croatia, which owns the documents that were taken,» said Boris Jokic, the head of the Croatian working group that drew up the reforms, in an interview on N1 television in Croatia on August 29.

Officials in Montenegro have acknowledged the similarities between the two reform packages but said the framework was not its final version and that it borrows from the experiences and practices of several countries.

The Education and Science Ministry, which oversees the council, said on August 22 that it would investigate the claims. Croatia, meanwhile, has said it is consulting with legal experts.

«The authenticity of educational efforts does not exclude the observation of the best experiences of others in order to realize the full potential of all children,» Montenegro’s Bureau for Education Services said in an August 22 statement.

Ironically, the Croatian plan, drawn up between 2015 and 2016, was pushed to the side amid internal bickering in the cabinet that took power after a snap election in 2016.

Each country is undertaking reforms to overhaul its education system’s curriculum and training methods, giving teachers more freedom in classrooms that would become more interactive.

Source:

https://www.rferl.org/a/montenegro-education-reforms-plagiarism-lesson/28703476.html

 

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