Matiang’i postpones release of new curriculum to January

The Ministry of Education has once again pushed forward the release of a new curriculum that was set to be out on Thursday in Nairobi.

Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i announced that the national curriculum conference to endorse the new curriculum will now be held on January 6.

Dr Matiang’i made the announcement at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development on Tuesday when he chaired the national curriculum steering committee.

The steering committee is tasked with guiding the formulation of relevant policies to facilitate the process of curriculum development, implementation and assessment of the reformed curriculum.

Sources indicate that the meeting has been pushed forward in order to enable the ministry brief President Uhuru Kenyatta on the new curriculum since the process needs political backing.

This is the second time that the exercise has been pushed forward.

The Nation has learned that one of the options the conference is likely to be presented with is from a 2012 report of a taskforce chaired by Prof Douglas Odhiambo, which proposed the scrapping of the 8-4-4 system of education to be replaced a 2-6-3-3-3 system which it says would ensure learners acquire skills to meet the human resource aspirations of Vision 2030 blue print.

“The world over, education reforms and reviews of evaluation are viewed as critical aspects of assessing learning,” said Dr Matiang’i when he released Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations.

He said that most countries are turning to adoption of continuous assessments over summative evaluation.

“We in Kenya are planning to go this direction in due course,” he disclosed.

He went on: “We have proposed, in the planned changes to the education curriculum, to gradually invest in the change that focuses on continuous evaluation,” he added.

Dr Matiang’i observed that this will require reforming of the current teacher-training framework, a retraining of some of the critical actors in the evaluation chain and a relook at the whole process of the spectrum of assessment.

“But while we gradually transform assessment, we have to take the result of each examination administered seriously and seek to analyse the lessons we draw from them. Release of the examinations should not be a ritual but a moment for the careful reflection by all parties involved in the education process,” said Dr Matiangi.

Kenyans have since proposed an education system that will put more emphasis on skills as opposed to theory and examinations.

The 8-4-4 system has been widely criticised for being expansive, heavily loaded in terms of content and too examinations- oriented, which, combined, put undue pressure on the learners.

The proposed curriculum structure considers the age and developmental stages of the learners at all levels, allows transition of all pupils from primary to secondary, and offers several pathways to learners after secondary school.