Speaking after meeting with the national steering committee on the curriculum reforms Wednesday, Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed said she is satisfied with the quality of implementation in the pilot phase/MOSES MUOKI
NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 3 – Despite the initial hitches following the rollout of new Competence Based Curriculum, its quality has been rated to be “above average” based on global standards, according to new findings.
Speaking after meeting with the national steering committee on the curriculum reforms Wednesday, Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed said she is satisfied with the quality of implementation in the pilot phase.
“Some of the key findings from the preliminary reports tabled indicate that our overall quality of Competence Based Curriculum implementation based on international benchmark is 56 per cent. The minimum threshold set out for global standards for such an exercise is 50 per cent. This means that our quality of implementation during the pilot phase is currently 5 per cent above the international benchmark,” she said.
The pilot phase was launched last year to test the feasibility and validity of the planned curriculum designs, teacher preparation and assessment models.
Ten pilot schools were selected in each of the 47 counties on well balanced and elaborate criteria.
The new system which seeks to replace the current 8-4-4 focuses on skills instead of knowledge. It will replace the current form one to form four with Grade 1 to Grade 12.
The curriculum has been categorised into three phases – early years education covering nursery education to grade 3, middle school education covering grade 4 to 9 and senior school covering grades 10 to 12.
The new curriculum has however encountered some challenges including lack of new curriculum textbooks, learning materials and teacher capacity.
CS Mohamed assured that materials required for the new curriculum will be availed in all schools.
She said the implementation process will be gradual with the phasing out of the 8-4-4 system expected to be complete by 2027.
Over 100,000 teachers have since been trained as the country gears towards the full rolling out of the curriculum that will among other train students on other economic empowering activities like agriculture, away from white collar jobs.
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