IGANGA – Police on Wednesday was forced to intervene after over 800 secondary school teachers from Busoga Sub-region who are undergoing a training on the proposed new curriculum, rejected it, accusing government of rushing it without any clear objectives.
The teachers, who are training at Iganga Secondary School, threatened to beat up their trainers, whom they accused of showing lack of knowledge about the curriculum.
“You cannot tell me that when you go to a class, every learner’s contribution is correct. This is hogwash. These people are confused,” one of the teachers said.
Another teacher added: “As implementers, we were not consulted and have noticed a lot of anomalies. We ask government to take back the curriculum and first consult stakeholders.”
The teachers also said the content is so much yet the trainers are simply rushing through.
The teachers also refused to listen to pleas by Iganga Resident District Commissioner, Ms Eva Kwesiga, to resume with the training.
Mr David Ndaula, the Iganga District Police Commander, urged the teachers to express their grievances in a civilized manner, arguing they were not going to tolerate acts of violence.
The teachers also expressed concern over what they said was an unreasonable facilitation of Shs30,000 for every teacher attending the training to cater for transport refund, upkeep and allowance.
The teachers’ protest comes after Parliament on Tuesday halted the newly revised lower secondary curriculum until government is ready to implement it. The MPs wondered how government, through National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC), could roll out the curriculum without textbooks to aid the teaching and learning and majority of the teachers are not yet trained on the new methodologies.
“This is called organised chaos. The supervisors of our institutions are head teachers. But they are green about this curriculum. I don’t think we are ready. Somebody picked things here and there and put them together and said here we are go and train,” Shadow Education minister Mathias Mpuuga said.
