Primary Teacher Education Syllabus Agriculture

Abstract

1.0 INTRODUCTION TO THE SYLLABUS Agriculture still remains the major source of food, income and employment for over 80% of the Ugandan population. Most of the country's industries are agro-based with a large proportion of their raw materials coming from the agricultural sector. In spite of the relatively high profile agriculture occupies in the country's development, little emphasis has been placed on the development of the sector. Many peasants still practice farming at subsistence level and agriculture is not seen as an honourable and profitable undertaking. Traditional agricultural practices still exist and efforts by the government to modernize agriculture by targeting the farming community has largely registered little success. In 2000 Government, with the help of Danida, developed the Primary Agriculture Syllabus (PAS) published in volume II of the Primary Education Curriculum. The syllabus is currently being used in the Primary School. The development of PAS created the need to develop a new Primary Teachers College (PTC) Agriculture Syllabus which is harmonized with PAS. In addition, the need to have a single PTE Agriculture syllabus for both the In-service and Pre-service PTE programmes was found mandatory. This PTE Agriculture syllabus attempts to guide learning in the Agriculture field with a practical orientation. The teacher trainee is provided with sufficient material and background information to enable him/her to teach agriculture effectively in the Primary School.