New curriculum: Learners exposed to wrong questions, UNEB warns

With just six weeks remaining before pioneer students sit for the first set of exams under the new lower secondary curriculum, a study conducted by the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has revealed that most teachers across the country have been presenting students with outdated questions during assessment.

The findings indicate that instead of challenging students with higher-order questions that require critical thinking, teachers have continued to set questions based on the old curriculum.

This has raised concerns among experts, who fear that candidates may struggle to interpret and respond to the questions accurately, given the fact that UNEB will base the upcoming examinations on the new competency-based curriculum.

While releasing the findings on the implementation of the new competence-based curriculum in lower secondary schools at their offices in Kyambogo yesterday, Rodgers Karuhanga highlighted that teachers’ assessment methods did not align with the competence-based curriculum.

The results showed that 59 percent of teachers asked their students lower-order thinking questions, while only 41% posed higher-order thinking questions.

Additionally, 69% of teachers relied on traditional paper-and-pencil assessment methods commonly used in schools, which encouraged students to memorize their class notes—a practice deemed crucial for passing exams but not aligned with the new curriculum’s goals.

According to the National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC) Lower Secondary Learning Framework (2020), students must be asked questions that reflect knowledge, skills, creativity, and attitudes.

However, the responses provided by teachers clearly showed that most of them focus on assessing lower levels of thinking, with little emphasis on higher-order thinking, contradicting the Competence-Based Assessment standards.

In an interview, UNEB Chairperson and former Vice Chancellor of Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Prof. Celestine Obua acknowledged the severity of assessing learners using the old curriculum, but he expressed hope that the situation could be remedied in the remaining period before students sit for their examinations in October.

“We at UNEB are concerned, but the situation is not dire. We will conduct remedial training for teachers on how to assess their students using the materials we provided before the examinations,” Prof. Obua said.

Dr. Tonny Muzaale, the Director of Research, mentioned that they have already begun training teachers on how to assess learners using higher-order questions and have covered most regions, with only the Central region remaining.

“We conducted this research because we wanted to understand the ground realities before assessing our students. We identified gaps in the assessment process, where teachers have been asking questions that do not promote critical thinking. This will, however, be rectified,” Dr. Muzaale said.

Written by Damali Mukhaye