Developing a Framework to Enhance Assessment, Teaching and Learning of Values and Life Skills in Uganda

• In Event: Equipping Learners for a Dynamic Digital Future: Insights from Integrating 21st Century Skills in East Africa’s Education Systems

Proposal

Sustainable Development Goal 4.7 (SDG) highlights the significance of guaranteeing that learners acquire knowledge and abilities to promote sustainable ways of life and a culture that values fairness and excellence. Quality education should strive to develop cognitive learning outcomes and social and emotional ones (Care, Griffin, et al., 2018; Care, Kim, et al., 2018). With the rapid pace of technological advancement and globalization, the demand for 21st-century skills such as critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication has never been greater (UNESCO, 2019). Moreover, the emerging global market trends and technological progress have led to rapid changes and job ambiguity in the workplace. Like the rest of the world, East Africa is rooting for competency-based education to prepare learners to thrive in the 21st Century. In Uganda efforts have been made to integrate competency-based teaching and learning methodologies, with significant emphasis on acquiring essential life skills and values alongside cognitive attainment.
Uganda's restructured Lower Secondary School Curriculum includes integrating core competencies/life skills and values in teaching and learning processes. These include competencies such as communication and collaboration, critical thinking and problem-solving, imagination and creativity, digital literacy, and the values of responsibility, respect, and integrity. While these competencies are well stated, there’s a lack of guidance on what is reasonably expected of learners at any given grade level and how teachers are to facilitate this process.
Drawing on our prior experience of developing skills frameworks as part of an East Africa initiative on life skills and values, we are collaborating with the National Curriculum Development Centre and National Examinations Board in Uganda to research and develop a framework for assessing and nurturing such skills and values across grades (learning progressions). We have drawn on creative thinking, problem-solving, and cooperation skills to illustrate what it takes to unpack a skill and assess and teach it effectively across grades. This paper shares a practical demonstration of how this framework has been developed and lessons emerging from creating ‘evidence-informed’ learning progression, the approach we have chosen to embrace in this initiative. Evidence-informed progression is a description of a skill grounded in a hypothetical progression but informed by current evidence from the classroom. This evidence may be drawn from learner responses to tasks that target key performance indicators assumed to underpin performance. The tasks would ideally be created by assessment experts with deep knowledge of the construct itself, knowledge of the curriculum in which the skills are embedded, and expertise in assessment. The paper demonstrates the collaborative and participatory approach we have embraced, working closely with professional staff from the national curriculum and assessment institutions and selected item writers/teachers. We argue that this collaborative approach of learning-by-doing is best suited to inform continuing transformation in the two national entities to develop and fine-tune learning progressions for other skills (including digital literacy) that in turn will improve teacher practice and learners’ acquisition of these competences.

Authors

• Faridah Mubiru Nassereka, Uwezo Uganda

• Stella Rose Akongo, Luigi Giussani Institute for Higher Education

• Martin Ariapa, Luigi Giussani Institute of Higher Education

• Mary Goretti Nakabugo, Uwezo Uganda