Legislators have tasked the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) to intensify efforts in training teachers on the Competence Based Curriculum, after reports emerged that the few teachers trained are demanding payment from fellow teachers who haven’t been trained, amidst fears that the trained teachers are also withholding vital training from their unfortunate counterparts.
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The call was made by Connie Nakayenze (Mbale City Woman MP) on during a meeting held between Parliament’s Education to Committee, and Ministry of Education on 18th February 2027, convened to discuss the queries raised by the Budget Committee, during the consideration of the 2026/27 National Budget Framework Paper.
Her remarks were in response to a revelation made by Dr. Bernadette Nambi, Director, National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) who noted that many teachers require extensive retraining to effectively deliver the competence-based curriculum, a practice that has to go on for the next five years if Uganda is to reap benefits from the new curriculum.
Nakayenze asked the Ministry of Education to take advantage of the long holiday periods in December to January to train teachers noting, “I know that funds may not be very readily available but we can still batch them slowly by slowly, going region. We find that at least a number of these teachers know what to do because to be sincere, especially in the rural setting, they don’t know what to do, they are still grappling with what to do and that is why many of them are not yet getting to the standard or understanding. Let the teachers be retooled because this is the biggest problem.”
Although Kajara County’s Michael Timuzigu backed the intensified training of teachers, he also urged the Ministry of Education and Sports to have funds set aside for assessing the teachers that have been trained.
Peter Ogwang, Minister of State for Sports, welcomed Timuzigu’s proposal of using curriculum week to train and assess the trained teachers during the curriculum week stating, “We can be able to discuss it at the top management, and say we could be able to handle it if it’s in the interest to support the continuous professional development of our teachers. That is a positive one. Assessing the teachers who teach, Trainers of Trainers, I have also picked it up.”
Nathan Itungo (Kashari South) sought clarification on the number of teachers and schools in Uganda to enable Parliament compare how many teachers need to be trained in the new curriculum remarking, “They (NCDC) have trained 12,593 teachers. Now if you could know the total number of teachers vis-à-vis what they have trained, would we be able to understand the effectiveness of the training?”
Minister Ogwang attributed the failure to train all teachers on the new curriculum on the financial constraint, and appealed to the Education Committee to provide more funds to NCDC, to enable the Centre worth with Uganda National Institute for Teacher Education (UNITE) and other teaching training institutions to train student teachers, so that it becomes part and parcel of the entire curriculum, so that at the time of graduation, they are well versed with the Competence Based Curriculum.
Despite acknowledging the challenge of shortage of funds, Dorothy Nyakato (Kitagwenda Woman MP) called for an assessment into the already trained teachers saying, “Much as we have budget constraints, the teachers who are trained, are they doing the right work? Have you carried out research to know that actually the people you have trained, they are doing the work they are supposed to do on the ground? So, we need to carry out research. We don’t just need to train teachers and we stop there; we need to do our oversight and research to know that actually those teachers who are trained are training others.”
Nakayenze also asked Government to ensure that the roll out of the new curriculum moves in tandem with the provision of education materials, and ensure that these are printed in bulk because there are schools that may not even access them.
