NEW CURRICULUM, NEW CHALLENGES
A new academic year started on the 25th of April 2022, allowing students move to the class that was ahead of them in the previous year. Despite this new adventure for the students in their new classes, a lot of doubt looms in the wake of the new curriculum, the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC). Described as a curriculum that emphasizes what learners are expected to do rather than mainly focusing on what they are expected to know, it is the implementation matrix that Kenya’s education stakeholders took that presents the doubt.
CBC will have learners will have to spend:
2 years in pre-primary education
6 years in primary education
3 years in junior secondary education
3 years in senior secondary education
3 years(minimum) in university education
At the end of each education level, learners are subjected to a test that will allow them to transit to the next level. The 8-4-4 curriculum though had/has learners spend eight years in primary level, and four years each in secondary and university. According to Ruben Primary School headteacher, she believes that CBC is an all-inclusive curriculum that will have every learner’s potential utilized to the maximum.
As Kenyans would be quoted saying, the rain will start “beating” us when the first candidate group of CBC, who are now in grade six waiting to join junior secondary schools end of this academic year, enroll whilst there were no necessary resources dedicated to ease the transition between the two curriculums. The resources include classrooms, textbooks, training teachers on how to implement the curriculum as well proper dissemination of information to parents on the same. Again, as is Kenyan norm, parents bought into an idea without proper comprehension on what implications will have on their children.
To put this situation into further context, the current grade six learners on CBC will sit their final primary school test end of 2022. At the same time, learners who are on 8-4-4 will sit their KCPE concurrently with the grade six learners. The last lot of 8-4-4 students are currently in class 7. This means that come 2023, Kenyan high schools will be accepting 2022 grade 6 and class 8 candidates simultaneously. It also means that current class 7 students will be left in primary school while current grade 6 students are in junior secondary school. The bigger concern is on Kenyan high schools that will have to create extra room for the extra immediate candidates, in terms of classrooms and accommodation facilities. 8-4-4 curriculum has more subjects in its curriculum and these teachers will be expected to teach those subjects at the same time teach CBC’s new subjects.
It sounds like a lot because it is. The nail on the coffin is that 2022 is an election year. This means the uncertainty on the normalcy of the elections is there and completion of this academic’s year syllabus is not guaranteed. All in all, we pray and hope that a speck of lights emerges amid the chaos.
By: Gregory Barake