School Practice (SP) is an important aspect in imparting practical skills to teacher trainees in preparation for their full-time careers as educators. It provides them with hands-on experience to implement Active Teaching and Learning and enhances their skills in lesson preparation, classroom management, and lesson delivery, which are all key in effective teaching and learning. In the National Teachers’ Colleges (NTCs) in Uganda, school practice is conducted over a twelve-week period, and supervised internally (by NTC lecturers) and externally (by Kyambogo University) as the final assessment of the 2-year teacher training course before graduation.  

However, since 2020, 6826 students in the National Teacher’s Colleges have not been able to do school practice due to school closures. This has prevented them from being promoted to the next school year or graduating and, has clogged the NTCs’ systems. It is against this background that the Ministry of Education & Sports has re-strategized and reimagined school practice as both an immediate action and long-term intervention for the current teacher education crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Through the various co-creation workshops with NTCs’ Principals, Deputy principals, lecturers, students and partner secondary schools, an advocacy paper was developed to solicit alternative ways of conducting school practice in these challenging times. The advocacy paper was presented to the Teacher Education Working Group on the 26th of August and Kyambogo University on 15th September 2021. As a result, it was agreed that the NTCs and TETD department of the Ministry of Education and Sports would prepare and submit to Kyambogo University (KyU) an emergency response plan for School Practice to be implemented when the colleges re-open.

The emergency response plan for SP was submitted to Kyambogo University and later approved on 18th October 2021 for adoption and implementation. It entails the following measures;

• Grade Continuous School Practice (CSP) in the NTCs and partner secondary schools and use the results for school practice. This will be done by providing remote assignments/support to students so that they can develop their portfolios entailing schemes of work, lesson plans and audio recordings of an explanation of a theory aspect.

• Make the General Teaching Methods online course mandatory and assess it to contribute to the final grade for students to be promoted.

• Organize peer teaching sessions for students in the NTCs to be graded and supervised by NTC lecturers and Kyambogo University supervisors.

Now that the NTCs have re-opened and have begun implementing the emergency plan for school practice, students will be able to successfully complete the teaching course and graduate. The NTCs’ 3-year backlog in the system will also be cleared and the spread of COVID-19 will be minimized through the hybrid approach to conducting SP. Most importantly, the minimum standards of doing school practice in the National Teachers’ Colleges will be maintained.