Magento 2 Category URL Slow Load – How to Improve Speed

You can retrieve the active category and output it's values

$category = Mage::registry('current_category');
echo $category->getName();
echo $category->getDescr();
// etc

This can be done from any existing PHTML file that is placed there or by adding your own file like so:

local.xml

<catalog_category_layered>
    <reference name="left">
        <block type="core/template" name="top_cat_title" before="-" template="catalog/category/custom_title.phtml"/>
    </reference>
</catalog_category_layered>

Now create a PHTML file in the templates catalog/category directory called custom_title.phtml and add the above PHP code.

This will display the current category data for you

First check if the layout handle is correct.
Add this line in the controller to see the layout handle

echo $this->getFullActionName();

I have a feeling it will print something like this adminhtml_module_sync_index. This is the layout handle you have to use in the layout file.
Also, just to be save, add a name and alias to the block from the content section.
Something like this:

    <adminhtml_module_sync_index><!--put here what you get from the echo in the controller -->
        <reference name="head">
            <action method="setTitle" translate="title">
                <title>Module</title>
            </action>
        </reference>
        <reference name="content">
            <block type="module_sync/adminhtml_index" template="sync/index.phtml" as="index" name="index" />
        </reference>
    </adminhtml_module_sync_index>