Thematic Curriculum, Role of Parents, and Quality of Primary Education: A Governance Challenge for the Anglican Church of Uganda

Abstract

This scholarly article examines the quality of rural based primary education among the Anglican
Church founded primary schools in Uganda, tracing the trends of church-government-parents
involvement from the time formal education was introduced in Uganda by European Christian
missionaries. The paper displays the governance challenges experienced by the Anglican Church
in the implementation process of thematic curriculum that are contributing to the poor quality of
primary education. To examine the trends of formal education in Uganda, historical-critical
hermeneutical methodological approach that focuses on understanding humanistic literary
works was relied on. Results show that: a) Anglican Christian leadership is incapacitated to
manipulate local resources to sustain education programmes established on religious lands; b)
lack of teacher training in local language classroom management is a pivotal challenge
demotivating teachers; c) local language curriculum is written in English which makes it hard
for teachers to translate and interpret certain concepts; d) guiding books and phonetic charts
that accompany the local language curriculum are in short supply; e) children transiting from
local languages to English languages is a serious struggle. Teachers who handle lower primary
classes are trained differently from those who handle transition and upper classes; f) class
rooms are crowed and this has resulted into high teacher pupil ratio. Big numbers of learners
have made it hard for teachers to focus on the unique learning needs of each pupil; and g) noncommittal behaviour of parents to the education needs of their children is a serious setback. It is
recommended that the Anglican Church of Uganda that is well structured with leadership
councils takes the lead in promoting quality education among rural based government aided
primary schools established on their religious lands. In addition, the Directorate of Education
rolls out a Provincial Newsletter annually detailing academic performances of primary schools
in their custody.