NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 17 – Law Society of Kenya (LSK) President Nelson Havi has moved to court seeking conservatory orders against further implementation of the Competence Based Curriculum (CBC).
In an urgent application filed on Thursday on behalf of the petitioner, advocate Esther Ang’awa, Havi asked that the matter be heard by an uneven number of judges of not less than five to be assigned by the Chief Justice.
“The necessity to have a bench of not less than five to hear the matter is informed by the various serious questions raised in the petition including whether the Minister in charge of Education can alter the system of education through sessional papers and policy decisions instead of legislation,” he told Capital FM on Friday.
“A reading of the Basic Education Act indicates that the system of education is codified in law and its only Parliament that can change that system of education,” Havi explained.
The LSK President argued that the overhaul of the education system had resulted in the alteration of the basic structure of the country’s education system without necessary amendments to the Basic Education Act.
“The effect of this overhaul and replacement of the system and structure of basic education is to designate a primary school as a secondary school and obfuscate the dichotomy between these two components of the basic education structure necessary for transition from primary education to secondary education,” Havi stated.
Ang’awa who also filed an affidavit in support of the petition said the roll out of the new curriculum primarily on the basis of the Basic Educational Curriculum Framework of 2017 and the Sessional Paper 1 of 2019 on curriculum reform constituted a violation of the Basic Education Act and the Constitution.
The petitioner argued that actions by Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha, the Kenya Institute for Curriculum Development (KICD), the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) are unlawful and prejudicial to school-going children.
She argued rights guaranteed under Chapter 4 of the Constitution and protected in Articles 19, 21 24, 29, 33, 42, 43, 47, 53, 55, 69 and 70 risked been infringed upon under the CBC framework.
Ang’awa singled out the right to free and compulsory education as enshrined in Article 53 as a critical area the Ministry of Education had failed to consider in the roll out of CBC.
The petition sets the stage for a titanic legal battle with the Ministry of Education insisting that the “CBC train has left the station.”
Magoha told a recent forum with news editors that both teachers and learners were comfortable with the new curriculum dismissing concerns raised by a section of stakeholders including parents as unfounded.
“We have no apologies to make to anybody, this competency-based curriculum is here to stay. In my life it’s the most transformative thing I have seen. I used to be worried that our teachers will compromise it. Even the teachers love it,” Magoha told the Kenya Editors Guild on Tuesday.
“To portray government as if it does nothing, Ladies and gentlemen is being unfair. Don’t demonize me for saying so, the facts are there,” he asserted.
The national roll out of CBC started in January 2019 at Pre-Primary I and II and Grades I, II and III in lower primary. Learners have since transitioned to Grade V.