Government has insisted on maintaining a bachelor’s degree as a requirement for all teachers intending to practice the profession at all teaching levels in the country.
This was after Members of Parliament on the Parliamentary Education Committee opposed the proposal which is in the National Teachers Bill 2024, saying such requirements should come with correlative salary enhancement, which the Government is silent on.
According to the Government proposal, all teachers starting with pre-primary must have degrees and those with undergraduate qualifications should upgrade to degree level.
However, in response, the Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka said that the proposal is already a Government policy that cannot be reversed, and those affected have been given a 10-year window to obtain degrees.
Similarly, the MPs on the committee and officials from the Ministry of Education and Sports clashed on the creation of the National Teachers Council, a regulatory body in the Bill responsible for overseeing the teaching profession.
The MPs argued that the creation of the council is contradictory to the Government policy on rationalization.
Meanwhile, the Education Ministry has dropped the proposal to impose both internship and teacher practice on students training to become teachers and has instead proposed to maintain the status quo.
This position was revealed by the Assistant Commissioner of Education Policy in the ministry, Brighton Barugahare, while appearing before the Parliamentary Committee on Education to respond to concerns raised by various stakeholders on the National Teachers Bill 2024.
Barugahare says that while internship and school practice are different in meaning and practice, the Government agrees to drop this requirement due to practicability concerns that were raised and were extensively discussed in meetings.
The Government in the National Teachers Bill 2024 had proposed that all students training to become teachers must undergo both internship and school practice, something a number of stakeholders rejected, noting that this will be a duplication.
MPs on the committee appreciated the ministry’s move to drop internship but wondered how the students would achieve the skills the Government wanted them to obtain through internship.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education and Sports, Kedrace Turyagyenda informed MPs that they plan to replace internships with compressive school practice, where students will now be required to undertake school practice in their first year of study.
By Francis Lubega
20 Nov 2024
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