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.