Teachers’ preparedness for the implementation of the new business subjects’ curriculum in selected secondary schools of Kabale District, Uganda

Abstract

Teachers should be well prepared to enhance the implementation of the new Business Subjects curriculum. They ought to be well prepared to enhance the implementation of the new Business Subjects’ curriculum so as to impart the values of UgandaVision 2040. Given the recent curriculum changes of Business Subjects in Ugandan secondary schools as well as limited empirical evidence and discussion on the guidelines of the teachers’ preparedness for the implementation of the new Business Subjects’ curriculum, the current study sought to assess teachers’ preparedness for the implementation of the new Business Subjects’ curriculum in selected secondary schools of Kabale District, Uganda. The Research objectives that guided this study were; to assess the teachers’ characteristics for the implementation of the new Business subjects’ curriculum; to identify the teacher practices that support teachers for the implementation of the new Business Subjects’ curriculum; and; to identify teacher challenges that affect Business Subjects teachers’ preparedness for the implementation of the new Business subjects’ curriculum. The study was based on the doctrines of the curriculum theory developed by Ralph W. Tyler. Based on the pragmatist paradigm, the researcher adopted a mixed-methods approach. The research design used was the concurrent triangulation design. The study target population was 25 public and 16 private secondary schools in Kabale District giving a total of 41 secondary schools. Stratified sampling was used to select 5 private and 8 public secondary schools proportionally. A purposive sampling technique was used to select the study participants. These included 37 Business Subjects teachers and 13 Directors of Studies. Qualitative and Quantitative data were collected using in-depth interview schedules, and questionnaires respectively. The Quantitative data obtained were analyzed through inferential and descriptive statistics while Qualitative data were thematically analyzed. The study found out a significant effect of teacher characteristics on the implementation of the new Business Subjects curriculum. This was revealed by the Regression analysis’ correlation of determination value of R 2(.667) indicated that (66.7%) of the determinants of implementation of the new Business subjects’ curriculum can be influenced by teacher characteristics. The study found out that ICT integration, assessment and evaluation, lesson planning, use of teaching aids, Integration of teaching methods were the major teacher practices that Business Subjects teachers used to support their implementation of the new Business subject’s curriculum. Further study findings revealed that the preparedness of Business Subjects teachers was being hindered by both inside and outside school related teacher challenges. In conclusion, therefore, despite governments’ efforts to prepare Business subjects teachers for the implementation of the new Business Subjects curriculum, the exercise is being hindered by Business Subjects teachers’ ICT low skills, inadequate instruction materials, limited competent human resources, lack of locally published texts and inadequate in-service training. The researcher recommends that the government through the Ministry of Education should provide teaching and learning resources to secondary schools in plenty especially the human resource, more in-service training, instruction materials to prepare and enable Business Subjects teachers to realize the new Business subjects' curriculum goals. Besides, localizing training and teacher training on ICT should be prioritized as they are significant for preparing Business Subjects teachers to skillfully implement the new Business subjects’ curriculum.