Lesson Planning within the Uganda Lower Secondary Curriculum: Practices, Enablers and Challenges

In response to dissatisfaction with an overloaded, exam-oriented curriculum that did not meet 21st-century needs, Uganda undertook a curriculum review, leading to the development of a Competence-Based Curriculum at the lower secondary school level. The Lower Secondary Curriculum (LSC), which was launched in February 2020, aims to facilitate the process of producing competent graduates for the 21st-century world of work. The implementation of the LSC, therefore, emphasizes lesson planning as a deliberate strategy to ensure that teachers intentionally contribute to the achievement of learner-expected outcomes from this curriculum. Most research on the LSC currently in Uganda has concentrated on establishing the challenges encountered during the implementation process and little has been conducted on discrete aspects like lesson planning. This qualitative case study explored teachers’ practices for lesson preparation, enablers, and challenges to the lesson planning process. This study was guided by three research questions 1. What are the teachers’ lesson planning practices within the LSC? 2. What facilitates the lesson planning process within the LSC? 3. What kind of challenges do teachers encounter during lesson planning? Data was collected through one-on-one interviews and documentary analysis. Purposive sampling was used to select the research sites and study participants. The findings revealed that lesson planning involved occasional development of lesson plans, development of schemes of work, utilization of the internet, and collaborative scheming. Further, the presence of school facilities and collaborative planning majorly facilitated the planning process. Lesson planning was tedious, constrained by inadequate time for preparation and, inadequate resources. This study recommends that teachers be provided with training opportunities and resources to optimize the lesson planning process.