Teachers in Alebtong District have been urged to move beyond traditional content delivery and focus more on developing learners’ practical skills and competencies in Uganda’s Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).
British Council Programme Manager Janan Eochu said although teachers had embraced the new curriculum, many still required support to effectively translate its principles into classroom practice.
Eochu was speaking during a four-day Leaders in Teaching training at Aloi Secondary School, which began on Tuesday and brings together teachers from nine government aided schools in Alebtong District.
The programme, implemented by the British Council in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Sports and funded by the Mastercard Foundation, is equipping teachers with learner-centred teaching approaches, collaborative and project-based learning, gender-responsive pedagogy, practical and real-life learning, and continuous assessment.
Eochu said the training was not intended to be a one-off intervention, noting that participating schools would establish Continuous Professional Development (CPD) committees to promote peer-to-peer learning and continuous improvement among teachers. He also said a WhatsApp chatbot would be introduced to give teachers access to CBC materials, lesson plans, and other learning resources to support them beyond the training sessions.
Alebtong District Education Officer Agel Moses said the training would strengthen learner-centred teaching, classroom practices, and assessment while helping teachers develop learners’ knowledge, confidence, discipline, and life skills. Agel said district inspectors and technical staff would monitor the implementation of CBC in schools to ensure that teachers apply the skills acquired during the training and that the intervention contributes to sustained improvement in the quality of education.
Aloi Secondary School headteacher Dorcus Ejang said about 227 teachers from nine schools were participating in the training to address gaps in competency-based teaching, assessment, and project work.
Ejang said some teachers still struggled with scenario-based assessment and designing projects capable of equipping learners with practical skills relevant to the world of work. She urged teachers who had not yet reported for the training to attend.
The Leaders in Teaching in Alebtong training is scheduled to end on Friday, August 28. Similar sessions are being conducted across the 10 districts of Lango, with training for Kole District at Aculbanya Secondary School, while Lango College and Dr. Obote College are hosting Lira City, and Orum Secondary School is hosting Otuke District.
The programme will continue next week in Dokolo, Apac, Kwania, and Amolatar districts, with priority given to underserved and hard-to-reach schools. The first phase is targeting 1,500 of the planned 2,091 schools, while the remaining schools will be covered in a second batch.