More than 1,000 Ugandan teenagers tested on life skills

A new educational assessment is being carried out with 1,050 Ugandan teenagers to determine if they have the skills and tools needed to meet the world’s challenges.

The participants are people from 13 to 17 years old, enrolled in school and not enrolled in school. They are selected from 75 enumeration areas in Oyam, Jinja and Kasese districts.

Respondents are being assessed in four key areas; problem solving, collaboration, self-awareness and the value of respect. The actual evaluation begins on Friday, May 3, 2024 until Sunday, May 5, according to an official.

The contextualized assessment tool being piloted in the three districts was developed by the Regional Educational Learning Initiative (RELI) network under its Action for Life Skills and Values ​​Initiative in East Africa (ALiVE). ).

Ms. Kandy Alum, ALiVE Coordinator in Oyam District, said the data generated from this pilot program will help improve assessment tools and generate evidence on how life skills can be assessed.

“What we are currently doing is testing the tool. The data that will be generated from this assessment will help us improve the tool and will also help us generate evidence on how life skills can be assessed,” she added.

Uganda is currently implementing a new lower secondary curriculum that is competency-based and aims to equip students with the skills and values ​​they need to face challenges with positivity and creativity.

Evidence shows that these competencies are not only necessary in the workplace, but are also crucial to support academic achievement and promote the holistic development of the individual and society.

To facilitate this transformative process in the region, RELI launched the East Africa Life Skills and Values ​​Assessment project in 2020. The main objective of this intervention is to develop a standard framework to measure skills, increase public awareness and strengthen local capabilities. abilities to evaluate and promote skills and values ​​for life.

Oyam District School Inspector Benson Ongom thanked the development partners for the initiative.

“From my point of view, Uganda’s education system is not very good. The skills and then the core values ​​that should be embedded in us are not there. We talk about it, but in practice we don’t see it happening to us,” she said during the evaluators’ training at Oyam Town’s Rainbow Hotel on Wednesday.

Mr Emmy Zoomlamai Okello, National Leader of RELI Africa, noted that assessing life skills and values ​​has been a major challenge in the country due to the lack of a proven comprehensive tool.

Christopher Muganga, curriculum specialist at the National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC), agreed that generic skills or soft skills are a critical area of ​​a student’s education from the beginning “because it is going to make this student a person with a unique personality.”

“For example, if a person who runs an ammunition warehouse has a dubious character, he may even sell those ammunition to bad people. “People who have access to nuclear plants must have high moral authority because what they are handling is very dangerous,” he stated.

Ms Faridah Nassereka, lead researcher, said: “We had a tool developed for the global North to put into use within the region and yet we needed tools developed by us and for us that actually represented a true picture of a East African in relation to life skills and values.