The government has allocated Shs 7.1 billion for the implementation of the new A- level curriculum, MPs have been assured.
The assurance was given after Members of Parliament sitting on the committee of Education and Sports put the Minister of State for Finance (Planning), Amos Lugoloobi to task to ensure that funds are allocated to the National Curriculum Development Centre to implement the new curriculum.
The Ministry of Education introduced a competence based syllabus for Ordinary level (O- level) and the pioneers of the syllabus were examined by the Uganda National Examination Board (UNEB) last year and have now advanced to A- level.
The chairperson of the committee, James Kubeketerya, said that implementation of the A- level curriculum is overdue and should be treated with urgency.
“This is non-negotiable; the matter cannot be debated. Money should be found to implement the new curriculum,” he said.
Michael Timuzigu, the MP for Kajara said it is unfortunate that only 15 teachers have so far been trained by UNEB on how to assess students under the new curriculum.
“UNEB was not given money to train more teachers to do assessment and this new curriculum is going on. There is an assumption by the Ministry of Finance that those 15 who have been trained are training others,” said Timuzigu.
Nathan Itungo from Kashari South said that the new curriculum requires continuous assessment but UNEB is constrained by lack of funds.
“We have students in senior five but we are still struggling with implementation of the new curriculum,” he said.
Lugoloobi however said that the Ministry of Finance has allocated Shs18 billion to facilitate UNEB to carry out continuous assessments and subsequent marking of final national examinations.
“We have supported UNEB and now they have even reduced cases of exam leakages,” Lugoloobi said.
The MPs also urged the minister to consider harmonisation of salaries of all primary and secondary school teachers, following enhancement of salaries of teachers of science subjects.
Butemba MP, Patrick Nyanzi raised concern that the Ministry of Education has not included the request in the 2025/2026 financial year’s budget.
“The two Ministers [Finance and Education] have been appearing before us and they said that even before salaries of science teachers were enhanced, there was a plan to increase that of arts teachers. The two Ministers are here, do they have news for us to deliver to arts teachers,” he said.
Lugoloobi said that government was grappling with closing funding gaps in the national budget.
