Educational Innovation: Exploring the Impact of Educational Innovation on the Internationalisation of the Curriculum in Uganda

Abstract
This study investigates how the Internationalisation of the Curriculum (IoC) is interpreted and enacted within Uganda’s pre-primary education sector. Situated in a postcolonial, resource-constrained context, the research draws on Rogers’ (2003) Diffusion of Innovations Model to explore how teachers and school leaders navigate, adapt, and recontextualise global curriculum ideas in relation to local sociocultural realities.
Using qualitative data generated through focus groups, semi-structured interviews, and non-participant observation across urban and rural schools, the study reveals that educators demonstrate significant interpretive agency, reworking global content through relational pedagogies, vernacular knowledge systems, and community-based learning practices. Yet the diffusion process remains uneven, hindered by institutional gatekeeping, fragmented academic calendars, and systemic digital exclusion.
The study extends Rogers’ model by reconceptualising relative advantage in terms of cultural and pedagogical relevance, and by framing adoption as recursive and non-linear. In response, it proposes a hybrid analytic framework that integrates localisation, resilience, and epistemic justice, offering a nuanced account of innovation that centres on teacher agency and contextual coherence. By foregrounding pre-primary education in the Global South, this research contributes to critical debates on curriculum internationalisation and calls for equitable, situated, and relationally grounded approaches to educational change.