Education stakeholders push new curriculum roll-out to 2020
What you need to know:
- Education stakeholders have agreed to continue with the pilot programme.
The Ministry of Education and stakeholders have agreed to delay the roll-out of the new curriculum by one year following a meeting called to save the programme.
Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed's declaration that the ministry was not ready to roll-out the 2-6-3-3-3 curriculum next year led to panic and protests from some parents and publishers who had made heavy investments in the programme.
But now the stakeholders have agreed to continue with pilot programme and start training of tutors in teachers’ colleges on the new curriculum in January, 2019. The new curriculum will be rolled out in 2020, CS Amina said.
“The directorate of quality assurance and standards will be tasked to vigorously track the implementation of the competency based curriculum in all sub counties across the country and the training of quality assurance officers that will commence in February 2019,” said Ms Amina.
Ms Amina said the ministry will establish a secretariat within the ministry to coordinate the priorities, activities and communication of the new curriculum.
"The curriculum focus in the ministry will be reorganized to secure supervision and evaluation of the CBC in all private, public and special needs institutions in the country," said Ms Amina.
Earlier this week, the Education CS had told the Senate that the government was dropping the new competency based curriculum (CBC) because of a lack of broad consultations, preparedness and training of tutors.
The CBC programme was replace the exam-focused and demanding 8-4-4 system of education that was criticized for not giving students skills necessary for the job market, overburdening children and focusing on the passing of exams.
The proposal to scrap the 8-4-4 system was first contained in a 2012 report by a task force chaired by Prof Douglas Odhiambo.
The team recommended the 2-6-3-3-3 system aimed at “ensuring learners acquire competencies and skills to meet the human resource aspirations of the Vision 2030 blueprint”.
