Uganda Teachers Now To Train For Four Years

Uganda’s Ministry of Education says students enrolling in Uganda to train as teachers will study for four years, instead of three, effective 2021/2022 academic year.

The changes coincide with the elimination of Grade III and Grade V certificate and diploma teaching courses, respectively, in line with a 2019 Teacher Policy that Cabinet approved to standardise the teaching profession.

Under the lapsing arrangement, National Teachers Colleges (NTCs) would admit mainly eligible Senior Six leavers and award them diplomas after a two-year training in teaching while Primary Teacher Colleges or PTCs recruited students O-Level leavers who graduated with a certificate, also after two years.

Each of the years would include a three-month teaching practice, without which a student would not qualify as a professional teacher, and after which the graduate will formally be registered with Education ministry that issues the teacher a practising certificate.

However, government is converting many of the phased-out NTCs and TTCs to secondary schools and vocational training institutions, in sub-counties or districts without them, while the retained teacher colleges will train students and only award degrees of a proposed Uganda National Institute of Teacher Education (UNITE).

Described by Education officials as an equivalent of Uganda Management Institute (UMI), UNITE will be headquartered at Shimoni Primary Teachers’ College in Wakiso in an arrangement that mirrors a resurrection of the Institute of Teacher Education Kyambogo (ITEK), which government merged with related specialised educational institutions to form Kyambogo University.