Harnessing the competency-based curriculum for a socially just education system: insights from Uganda

Social justice in education in the Global South remains a daunting endeavour. This study examines Uganda’s competency-based curriculum (CBC), introduced in 2020, and explores how it might be leveraged to advance socially just curricula. Drawing from interviews and focus group discussions in two elite and two mass lower secondary schools, it examines variations in pedagogy, assessment and implementation, revealing both the potential of the CBC and its limitations in the pursuit of social justice in schools. The findings can therefore serve as a building block in the case for socially just curricula, although they do not in themselves provide a basis for addressing systemic and structural injustices in education.