{UAH} Museveni To Teach Swahili In Schools

MPs query Swahili project in primary schoolsPublish Date: Jul 26, 2013

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Government had proposed to have Kiswahili taught in primary schools.

newvision

By Paul Kiwuuwa              

KAMPALA - MPs on parliament's education committee questioned government's proposal to introduce Kiswahili as a language to be taught without trained instructors alongside other subjects in primary schools.

The legislators argued that using untrained Kiswahili instructors would produce half-baked pupils unable to compete to the international standards.

Soroti Woman MP Angelline Osegge demanded an explanation to why National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) had oriented unprofessional Swahili teachers before analyzing their expertise around the literary subject.

This comes against the backdrop of government's directive that Kiswahili be taught starting from the peripheral stages of education to enable Ugandans to compete with others in the region.

Kiswahili is popularly known to be the general east African language. It remains the chief spoken language in Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar.

"We are not against the cabinet proposal to introduce Kiswahili in the primary school curriculum but schools are likely to produce half-baked pupils," said deputy committee chairperson Richards Opolot.

MPS argued that the introduction Kiswahili in primary schools will consume more time and pile a huge workload on pupils.

This, they said, would come in the way of the core subjects targeted at their future careers.

So they had their recommendation: The language instructors should be from recognizable institutions, before Swahili is introduced to the primary school curriculum.

 MP Christine Acayo (Nebbi) said if the language is made compulsory in primary schools, it may confuse the pupils because it is not an official language like English.

 Julius Maganda (Samia Bugwe South) argued that NCDC had based on the directive of cabinet without carrying out research to enable them come up with an applicable program that would be performed and help people on the ground.

A delegation led by Connie Kateeba, the NCDC director, told the MPs that Swahili would be taught from Primary Four to Primary Seven and the retooling process for teachers is planned to start in the medium term of 2013-2014.

 "We have so far oriented 127 teachers who will instruct the pupils. NCDC has been running a pilot on the Kiswahili syllabus in primary schools and the pilot schools will complete the cycle at P.7 in this financial year," Kateeba said.

NCDC officials appeared before the committee to defend of the quality and standards of the centre and budget requests highlighted in the Ministry of Education and Sports Ministerial Policy Statement for Financial Year 2013-2014.

Kateeba told the committee that the teacher education training syllabus for all Primary Teacher Colleges (PTCs) has been revised to include teaching of Kiswahili to all the Pre-Service teachers.