New Curriculum will Max at 3 Hours a day, 6 PLE Subjects

KAMPALA, UGANDA — In a major bid to dismantle Uganda’s exam-obsessed education culture, the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) has confirmed a sweeping overhaul of the primary school new curriculum set for national rollout in 2028.

The new Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) for lower primary (Primary One to Primary Three) will drastically cut down structured classroom hours, limit daily instruction for young children to a maximum of three hours, consolidate lower primary subjects from eight to four, and overhaul the Primary Leaving Examination (PLE) grading system.

Under the proposed reforms, the traditional numeric aggregate grading system used by the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) since 1983 will be scrapped in favor of letter grades. Additionally, the number of examinable PLE subjects will increase from four to six, making Kiswahili and Religious Education standalone tested papers alongside Mathematics, English, Integrated Science, and Social Studies.

The revelations come amidst growing public outrage over private schools subjecting six-year-olds to grueling 14-hour school days, heavy homework loads, and pre-dawn commuting routines that health experts say harm childhood development.

Also read about A-Level Curriculum

Why is Uganda replacing its primary school curriculum in 2028?

For decades, Uganda’s education system has drifted away from holistic learning toward a commercialized model focused almost exclusively on passing examinations, memorizing Q&A pamphlets, and securing first-grade aggregates.

Speaking during an interview on KFM’s D’Mighty Breakfast show hosted by presenters Beewol and Becky, Dr. Bernadette Nambi Karuhanga, the Deputy Director at NCDC, explained that the liberalization of education forced schools into a toxic race for top grades at the expense of practical skills.

“Along the way, when we started having new entrants on the market and the liberalization of education, we found ourselves drifting away from our earlier plan,” Dr. Bernadette stated. “We started focusing on grades, on passing exams, on teaching knowledge as opposed to holistic learning where we emphasized values, skills, and application of knowledge.”

Dr. Bernadette noted that the current primary curriculum severely overburdens young learners, leaving them no time to rest, play, or develop essential life skills.

“When you check on your way to work, you see children as young as six out early in the morning. Parents leave work and pick these kids at 6:00 PM or 7:00 PM, and then there is homework. The children are not allowed to thrive. They are not given an opportunity to think beyond what is given in the classroom or to be creative,” she added. “When parents and teachers think that cramming these children makes them smart, they are actually killing them. Learning is not only about content and bombarding learners with questions and answers.”

To reverse this trend, NCDC is designing a framework that prioritizes soft skills—including critical thinking, innovation, problem-solving, effective communication, IT literacy, and emotional intelligence—integrated directly into core subjects.

What specific changes are coming to lower primary (P1 to P3)?

The lower primary reforms will introduce radical structural adjustments to how young children spend their time at school, ensuring that teaching aligns with early childhood development science rather than secondary school schedules.

According to Dr. Patrice Ssembirige, the Acting Director of NCDC, the proposed lower primary curriculum strictly limits structured classroom learning to prevent burnout:

• 3 to 4 Years Old (Nursery / Early Years): Structured learning activities will be capped at a maximum of two hours a day.
• 4 to 5 Years Old: Structured learning will run for two to three hours a day.
• 5 to 6 Years Old (Primary One): Structured learning will not exceed three hours a day, divided into short 15-to-30-minute interactive sessions.

Dr. Ssembirige emphasized that lower primary pupils must not be treated like “miniature secondary school students” forced to sit through continuous lectures from 6:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

Furthermore, Dr. Richard Irumba, the Deputy Director in charge of Research, Consultancy, and Library Services at NCDC, revealed that learning areas for lower primary (P1 to P3) will be consolidated from eight subjects down to four core learning areas:

1. Literacy: Combining English, local native languages, and Kiswahili.
2. Mathematics: Focusing on practical numeracy and problem-solving.
3. Religious Studies: Emphasizing moral values, ethics, and spiritual development.
4. Livelihood Studies: Incorporating practical life skills, creative arts, performing arts, physical education, and basic technology.

Under this structure, academic instruction will dominate the morning hours, while the entire afternoon will be reserved for extracurricular activities, physical education, creative arts, and project-based group learning.

How will PLE examinations and grading change under the new curriculum?

One of the most significant structural shifts within the 2028 primary reform package is how UNEB will measure and report pupil performance at the end of Primary Seven.

Since 1983, UNEB has utilized a numerical aggregate scoring system (where Aggregate 4 represents a perfect score across four subjects). However, NCDC officials argue that numeric aggregates encourage rote memorization and teaching solely for exams.

1. Replacing Numeric Aggregates With Letter Grades

NCDC proposes replacing numeric aggregates with a comprehensive letter-grade assessment framework (e.g., Grades A, B, C, D) paired with continuous descriptive evaluation. This framework measures what a learner can practically demonstrate rather than how many past-paper answers they memorized.

2. Expanding PLE from 4 to 6 Examinable Subjects

To ensure well-rounded learning, NCDC proposes expanding the number of subjects formally examined at the Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) from four to six:

• Mathematics
• English Language
• Integrated Science
• Social Studies (SST)
• Religious Education (RE): Transitioning from a sub-topic within SST into a standalone, fully examined subject.
• Kiswahili: Introduced as a mandatory standalone examined language, aligning Uganda with East African Community (EAC) and African Union (AU) regional integration frameworks.

Dr. Irumba noted that UNEB assessment guidelines are being redesigned to test real-life scenario applications, critical reasoning, and practical problem-solving rather than theoretical recall.

How will the government enforce the new curriculum and stop private school abuse?

A major concern among parents and education advocates is enforcement. In Uganda’s highly privatized education sector, private school directors frequently ignore government guidelines, conducting illegal weekend coaching, late-evening boarding drills, and excessive homework regimes to top regional ranking tables.

Addressing this execution gap on KFM, Dr. Bernadette outlined a multi-agency strategy involving NCDC, UNEB, the Ministry of Education and Sports, and the Directorate of Education Standards (DES).

“When designing the curriculum, you must ensure alignment between the prescribed curriculum (what we designed), the implemented curriculum (what teachers teach), and the assessed curriculum (what UNEB examines),” Dr. Bernadette explained. “UNEB will help us ensure that this time around, assessment emphasizes the acquisition of skills as opposed to just knowledge. When questions being examined foster understanding and focus on real-life situations, schools will have no choice but to teach correctly.”

Additionally, Ms. Jane Frances Atima, Acting Director of the Directorate of Education Standards (DES), confirmed that field inspectors will enforce classroom compliance using standardized national quality indicators.

Speaking on the role of district inspectors, the Chairperson of the NCDC Council, Prof. George Lagaah Openjuru, warned private school proprietors against violating early childhood time limits:

“Implementation is the work of the Ministry of Education, especially the Directorate of Education Standards, which has representatives in all districts enforcing standards,” Prof. Openjuru stated. “They must ensure that education entrepreneurs don’t become over-enthusiastic and fail to follow the guidelines.”

NCDC is preparing a massive, nationwide training program targeting primary school teachers, headteachers, Directors of Studies (DOS), and deputy headteachers ahead of the 2028 rollout to ensure educators understand competency-based pedagogy.

What is happening to the A-Level curriculum and the 2020 Lower Secondary reforms?

The 2028 primary school overhaul is part of a broader, multi-phased national education reform that began in 2020 with the rollout of the lower secondary Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).

While lower secondary (Senior One to Senior Four) successfully transitioned to practical, project-based learning—yielding student innovations such as locally fabricated machinery and published literature—a major gap emerged because the Advanced Level (Senior Five and Senior Six) curriculum remained stuck in the old theoretical system.

Gilbert Gift Siima, Manager of the Secondary Department at NCDC, revealed that a new A-Level curriculum framework is currently undergoing field testing in selected secondary schools across the country.

“We are taking the draft A-Level curriculum through a number of checks. This year, we have gone to schools with a draft to check how it is working with learners,” Siima explained. “The proposed A-Level curriculum will place greater emphasis on critical thinking, research, technology, and practical application, ensuring a smooth transition for learners coming from lower secondary.”

Concurrently, NCDC is integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) literacy, TVET vocational skills, climate change education, and green jobs frameworks across both primary and secondary levels, as highlighted during the 2nd International Conference on Curriculum Development held at Speke Resort Munyonyo.

What must parents, teachers, and school directors do before 2028?

With two years remaining before the lower primary rollout in 2028, stakeholders across the education sector are calling for extensive regional consultations to prevent the confusion that initially accompanied the 2020 secondary rollout.

The General Secretary of the Uganda National Teachers Union (UNATU), Mr. Filbert Baguma, urged the Ministry of Education to prioritize early teacher retraining and transparent communication:

“All stakeholders should know what is going to be done and when. They must have regional consultative meetings so that people are brought on board,” Baguma emphasized. “We don’t want a scenario where people receive new assessment reports and cannot even interpret them.”

Closing her address on KFM, Dr. Bernadette appealed directly to Ugandan parents to change their personal expectations regarding childhood success and unlearn the obsession with raw aggregate scores.

“I want to help our parents appreciate that it’s high time we stopped emphasizing and focusing solely on exams,” Dr. Bernadette urged. “Exams alone will not equip our learners with the required skills in the world today. Learners who get first grades may not survive in the marketplace if they lack soft skills, leadership, and communication. Let us allow real learning to take place as opposed to just passing exams.”

As NCDC finalizes instructional materials and submits frameworks to its Governing Council and the Ministry of Education for final approval, the message to Ugandan schools is clear: the era of 5:00 AM cramming is coming to an end, and a new era of practical, balanced childhood education is officially on the horizon.