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High level forum on scrapping of 8-4-4 kicks off in Nairobi

8-4-4 has earned heated criticism and concerns that learners are more concerned about passing the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination than gaining knowledge.

As a result, exam cheating especially during last year’s KCSE and KCPE were marred by massive exam cheating leading to cancellation of results for candidates caught up in the malpractice.

READ: Matiang’i vows to eliminate cheating in national exams

The 2-6-3-3-3 deviates from over emphasis on exam passing by ensuring that learners can specialise from an early age and empower them with knowledge to equip them with necessary skills.

“It allows specialisation at the end of junior secondary; introduce a system of Competence Assessment Tests (CATs) measuring knowledge, skills and competencies, the results of which will be cumulative and form part of a formative assessment process, the credits from which will be accumulated in the summative assessment at the end of each phase.”

It seeks to reduce the time learners spend at home before joining the next level by introducing automatic progression to the junior secondary phase based on the acquisition of core skills and competencies which pays more attention to literacy, numeracy and communication skills.

The taskforce recommends that the new system be implemented in phases such that if it is endorsed in 2017, the last batch of KCPE candidates would sit the KCPE exam in 2018 and sit the KCSE examination in 2020.

“Implementation could start in Standard One and Standard Four next year while Standard Five, Six and Seven are prepared for junior secondary in 2018. The first class would sit the first junior secondary examination in 2020,” the task force recommended.

Other new changes proposed by the task-force include the renaming of the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) to the Kenya Educational Assessment Council (KEAC).

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“CATs by teachers are to be supported with a national framework, guidelines or test-bank by KEAC to be made available online on a regular basis. This will make the CATs standard and de-emphasise the many private examination papers being sold all over the country,” the taskforce notes.

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