The Ministry of Education and Sports is to spend 2.9 billion shillings on reviewing the curriculum for Uganda Technical Colleges.
The Assistant Commissioner for Technical Education, Ilahi Mansoor, says that the Ministry is working with the support of the Netherlands government.
The money will be spent on paying curriculum experts as well as presenting the reviewed curriculum before panels for vetting.
Mansoor adds that this budget may even shoot by about 2 percent, depending on how much activity will be found on ground.
The review process started on September 18th, and will last a year.
The four public technical colleges are Kichwamba in Kasese, Kahaya in Bushenyi, Lira, and Elgon in Sironko.
The curriculum under review is for Diploma programs in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering and Building, Water Engineering, Architecture and Ceramics.
The Commissioner says that the curriculum these colleges use is out-of-date and a review has been long overdue.
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He acknowledges that technical training has not been popular with learners over the last few decades.
He says that at any one point, the four colleges together have a population of about 1200 diploma students.
He adds that with this review, technical education will be made relevant and more acceptable to students again.
But while huge sums are being invested in this, secondary schools which should feed these colleges with students, abandoned the teaching of technical subjects.
Bosco, Lubega, the Director of Studies at Kololo High School, says that with the advent of Universal Secondary Education, the numbers in the schools soared and the schools were forced to have a double shift schedule.
This left little time for each shift, making it hard to teach such time-consuming technical subjects as Wood Work, Electronics or Technical Drawing.
Lubega adds that even worse is the fact that the students have a negative attitude towards such subjects.
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Claire Nduhuura, the Headmistress of City High School, raises the issue of the many compulsory subjects, coupled with the fact that technical subjects are expensive to facilitate.
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Mansoor says that the Ministry is beginning at reviewing the curriculum, to take steps in training job-creators, rather than seekers.
Currently, there is a proposal by the National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC) to review all secondary schools curriculum.
When effected, the curriculum will be split into two, with options for students to take on technical-oriented subjects, while others can study the general ones.
