By Laura Cenge
The Ministry of Education and Sports introduced a brand-new competitive-based lower secondary curriculum in 2020. Via projects and activities that will be undertaken in Senior Three. The learners will be evaluated according to how well they integrated the new curriculum.
The new curriculum emphasizes optional subjects such as agriculture, ICT, English literature, art and design, performing arts, technology and design, nutrition and food technology, and foreign languages (French,Latin, Arabic, and Chinese).
As a result, on March 17, 2023, the Department of University ICT Service (UIS) at Uganda Christian University (UCU), led by Rebecca Kamgabe, the UIS Technical Manager, paid a visit to Bishop Senior Secondary School in Mukono to lend a helping hand by sharing their knowledge of ICT with the students.
“As a department, we have people with different specialties like software designers, cyber security, and others, and we thought of sharing the little that we have with somebody else to benefit from what they will choose to become in the future,” she said.
Richard Lugya, the ICT teacher at Bishop Senior Secondary School Mukono, said that with the old curriculum, one had to go to a vocational school to acquire a certificate, but that will not be the same case with the new curriculum.
“Normally, one has to go to a vocational school to get certifications of documents, but with the new curriculum, you can get the UCE certificate as well as a vocational certificate so as to take on an occupation after senior four,” he said.
Richard further explains that the students that opt for ICT can venture into areas like cyber security, web designing applications, and others that fall under that list. So is a teacher; one is expected to prepare them practically and theoretically for the final exams that take place at the end of Senior Three,from which the representatives from the DIT office will come in to issue and assess the students.
The beauty of it all is that students will be able to finish the Senior Four with some certifications in the areas of study. For instance, the teachers in English prepare their students to take up professions in public speaking, which is also taught in class. Therefore, on top of the Distinction One (D1) that one will acquire on their transcript after the final exams, they walk away with a certificate in vocational training in the area that they registered for.
Speaking to Neila Ankunda, one of the students that attended the outreach, she said that she learned quite a lot from the session and hoped to carry it on with her in the near future.
“I have learned a lot about cybercrimes and how we are supposed to protect ourselves from them,” she said.
She also adds that she learned about what leaving one’s location on can do to their security and privacy and about encrypting the phones with stronger passwords that use lower and upper case and special characters.
Lugya also appreciated the UCU IT department for reaching out to them and coming in to perform a hands-on session with the students.
“Children are able to actualize what we teach them theoretically, for they learn through impression,” he said. “When they hear from someone other than their teachers, they get to understand more than from their own teachers.”
He also appreciated the relationship that the university has started with them and hoped that, in the near future, they would have the opportunity to come in and have a tour of the facilities so as to be able to inspire the students and prepare them with the works of those already venturing into their field of study.
