Researchers at the Institute of Teacher Education and Research at Makerere University have this morning told Parliament that 78% of nursery school teachers don’t have any basic qualifications to teach pupils in Uganda.
Dr. David Kabugo, Deputy Director at the Institute, said that “We are grappling with a serious issue in our country.”
“You all know that Early Childhood Development (ECD) is the foundation for every education. You can’t build the house from the top; you start from the bottom. The teachers we have from our Early Childhood Development Centers—I personally carried out a survey on more than 4000 ECD teachers in our country, and 78% of them don’t have any basic qualifications,” Dr. Kabugo said.
According to Dr. Kabugo, the National Teacher Policy mandates that all educators possess at least a bachelor’s degree. He says that “this will ensure that all teachers at the pre-primary level are well versed in pedagogy from a research and curriculum perspective; these are cores for every teacher.”
Dr. Kabugo also backed the proposal to have all educators, including nursery teachers, possess bachelor’s degrees, saying this will arm them with research skills because most of them are currently generalists.
