The Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Museveni has defended the institution’s decision to implement the new lower Secondary level curriculum this year, 2020. This after Members of Parliament, on Tuesday, halted the implementation of the curriculum.

Speaking at the Office of the Prime Minister where the ceremony for releasing the results of the 2019 Uganda Business and technical Examinations has been held, Minister Janet Museveni revealed that the Ministry has had enough time to develop the new curriculum.

The new curriculum has been halted before. In 2016, as NCDC warmed up to implement a curriculum that had taken them about eight years. The MPs, at the time, asked the Ministry of Education to make further consultations on the curriculum. A meeting with the President and university chancellors resolved that it be suspended to allow more consultations and adjustments in some proposals.

“We consulted a wide range of sector players concerning this curriculum. We took the trouble to talk to as many people as possible,” Janet Museveni says in response to MPs on Tuesday saying that not enough consultations were made by the Ministry.

Among those consulted by the Ministry, Museveni mentioned the Members of the committee of parliament on Education, Publishers, teachers, Uganda secondart head teachers Association, UNATU, sections of parents  and others.

"At the end of the consultations, the Ministry came up with the new lower Secondary Curriculum menu and a competency based design that aimed at "A holistic Education for Personal and National Development'," says the education Minister.

The MPs on Tuesday further wondered how government, through the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC), could roll out the curriculum without textbooks to aid the teaching and learning and majority of the teachers are not yet trained on the new methodologies.

Watch: MPs share why they want new O-level curriculum suspended

The Minister countered this by stating that the Curriculum was apporved by Cabinet in 2019 and that the Ministry has been preparing for the roll out.

"The Ministry has so far developed and distributed curriculum framework and syllabuses for all 21 subjects to all secondary schools in Uganda and textbook prototypes have been submitted to publishers to guide them in writing of the textbooks," janet Museveni told Journalists.

She also confirmed the training master trainers who are currently guiding teachers ofg senior one on the syllabus.

After the concerns raised by the MPs on Tuesday in Parliament, the Minister now intends to take the matter to cabinet fo0r further guidance on how to proceed.

“I want parliament to come and walk with us in this journey because most of them are parents,” says Janet Museveni.