The New curriculum report card system in Uganda is giving many parents a challenge to read report cards given to their children in Uganda’s secondary school.

The Skills-based curriculum dubbed New curriculum in Uganda aims at helping learners graduate from secondary schools in Uganda with skills intends of competing for best grades like it has been the habit in the country.

Although the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) has been training teachers around the country in delivering the new curriculum and making learners’ report cards. But the training suffered setbacks as some teachers reportedly did not pay enough attention to the learning process.

This again created a problem of teachers not being able to interpret the report cards further killing the only hope parents had to help them understand the performance of their children

Some  teachers maintain that making this report card is a tedious process, taking weeks or even months, while parents say it requires time and concentration to interpret it.

John Okumu, the manager secondary schools at NCDC promises that NCDC will continue to train the teachers

“The teachers thought the new curriculum would fail. But their attitude has changed after learning that pioneers will be sitting for their exams soon,” John Okumu, the, says.

However, Okumu says making and reading this report will become a lot easier for teachers and parents once they appreciate the benefits of the skilled-based assessment to the learner and the country.

How the report card in presented

The old Curriculum for axample in O Level organized the scores from 1 to 9 with 9 being the worst score. The new report cards however introsuced new score range, from  outstanding, moderate and basic. Basic being the worst performance.

The curriculum agency says parents should also pay special attention to the section which shows the learner’s values and generic skills when reading the report card as these are at the heart of competence-based learning.

“Employers are now more interested in employing trainable people, but not people who have scored highly. Skills like communication, collaboration and teamwork are important,” John Okumu, the manager secondary schools at the National Curriculum Development Centre, explains.

Therefore, the curriculum agency urges teachers to emphasize the development of values and generic skills during classroom-based learning.

The NCDC says a learner can develop a project for every subject studied. This will not only help the learner understand the usefulness of their subject in real life, but also enable them to use that knowledge to solve problems when they get out of school.

“The parents should expect to see two projects on the report card each term with scores,” Okumu says.

“Learning is not about passing exams, but getting useful skills,” Okumu adds.

The new curriculum has however helped schools to embrace technology. Many school owners have already installed School Management systems like AkdemikIT to automate the New Curriculum Report Cards which the parent can access remotely using mobile device. See more features of a New Curriculum Report Card System in Uganda

First Published by the Education Vision