Title: Education Policy Reform as an Enabler to Student Success: The Kajubi Legacy and the Shift to Competency
Authors: Dr. Arinaitwe Julius
Musiimenta Nancy
Volume: 9
Issue: 11
Pages: 288-296
Publication Date: 2025/11/28
Abstract:
Background: Education policy reform represents a critical pathway toward enhancing student success, with Uganda's Professor Senteza Kajubi's 1989 Education Policy Review Commission laying foundational principles that continue to shape educational transformation. Main Objective: This study examined how education policy reform, inspired by the Kajubi legacy and the shift toward competency-based education, enabled student success in Uganda's secondary education system. Methods: A mixed-methods convergent parallel design was employed across 45 secondary schools, involving 900 students, 450 teachers, and 135 administrators selected through stratified random sampling to achieve 80% statistical power. Univariate analyses included descriptive statistics and normality testing; bivariate analyses employed Pearson correlations, t-tests, and ANOVA; multivariate analyses utilized hierarchical multiple regression, structural equation modeling, and multilevel modeling using HLM 8 to account for nested data structures. Key Results: Policy alignment with Kajubi's principles and CBE frameworks demonstrated moderate levels (M = 72.45, SD = 12.38) and correlated significantly with implementation fidelity (r = .687, p < .001) and student outcomes (r = .456 to .542, p < .001). Implementation fidelity averaged 65.82 (SD = 15.67) and showed strong associations with teacher pedagogical practices (r = .741, p < .001). Hierarchical regression revealed that policy alignment, implementation fidelity, and teacher practices collectively explained 52-57% of variance in student outcomes, with teacher practices emerging as the strongest predictor (? = 0.442 to 0.489, p < .001). Conclusion: The study confirmed that education policy reform functioned as a significant enabler of student success when policies aligned with Kajubi's transformative principles and CBE frameworks, were implemented with fidelity through systematic support, and empowered teachers as agents of pedagogical transformation. Recommendation: The Ministry of Education and Sports should prioritize comprehensive teacher professional development programs specifically designed for competency-based pedagogy, as teacher practices constituted the strongest predictor of student success and represented the critical mechanism through which policy reforms translated into tangible learning outcomes.