I recently came across two documents at the Ministry of Education Resource Centre that are critical to understanding the challenges facing the implementation of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) in Kenya.
The first document is a report of the Task Force on Re-alignment of the Education Sector to the Constitution of Kenya, which was chaired by Dr James Kamunge.
In 2008, the team conducted desk and field research to get feedback from education stakeholders regarding the needs of students and society.
The committee then gave an opportunity to stakeholders, including teachers, parents, educators, university lecturers and students, to provide public input in the educational reform process.
It then presented its report to the then Education minister Prof Sam Ongeri in 2008. Most of the report’s recommendations were accepted by the government. In early 2012, the then Education minister Mutula Kilonzo established a ministry team to steer the educational reform process.
It is this team that, without public participation, included the adoption of the CBC.
The second document is the National Education Sector Plan volume I: Basic Education Programme Rationale and Approach of 2015. In July 2012, the Education CS requested the team to design the National Education Sector Plan document as part of actualising the Kamunge Report and Sessional Paper No. 14 of 2012.
The design of the National Education Sector Plan Volume One: Basic Education Programme Rationale and Approach 2013-2018 continued during the time Prof Jacob Kaimenyi was Education CS.
The Kamunge task force report and the National Education Sector Plan do not mention CBC and the 2-6-3-3-3 system of education.
In fact, the Kamunge task force recommended harmonisation of systems of education in East African Community countries.
It is evident from the two documents that former Education ministers Sam Ongeri, Mutula Kilonzo and Jacob Kaimenyi had a well-thought-out, home-grown strategy for reforming Kenya’s basic education school curriculum, and the current mess was created by the CBC Steering Committee, local and international consultants.
Since then, statements by senior ministry officials have not made reference to the Kamunge task force, Sessional Paper No. 14 of 2012 and the National Education Sector Plan of 2015.
Instead we have been made to believe that the current curriculum reform is based on the Odhiambo Commission report that was rejected by stakeholders.
The big question is, why is the government in a hurry to implement CBC before external summative evaluation of the pilot phase? It is clear that public participation in the current curriculum reform process has been distorted because many of the participants are uninformed, misinformed and manipulated by powerful interests.
The curriculum for primary and secondary cycles of the 8-4-4 system was implemented in 1986 in Standard 1 to 8 and Form 1.
Although it was faced with many challenges, such as shortage of teachers, overemphasis on public exams, ranking of schools, lack of facilities and lack of adequate teaching and learning resources, the efforts made to improve the quality of education have yielded many positive results for Kenyans to be proud of. Compared with many African countries, the quality of education is fairly high.
The 8-4-4 system has produced many young people who have gone on to make their mark in the country and elsewhere.
The Ministry of Education and CBC Steering Committee got two big things right and three completely wrong.
They are right the current curriculum needs to be reformed to make it relevant to the current needs of learners and society.
They are also right that teachers should be given in-service training on implementation of the new curriculum. But they are wrong to abandon the Kamunge task force report of 2008, Sessional Paper No. 14 of 2012 and National Education Sector Plan of 2015.
The fact that what is being implemented does not reflect the Kamunge task force undermines its legitimacy and fuels hostility to CBC.
They are further wrong in putting too much emphasis on curriculum implementation, particularly in-service training of teachers and provision of textbooks, at the expense of the quality of the curriculum itself.
Curriculum reform should not simply serve the needs and interests of textbook publishers, business cartels, international organisations and rent-seeking public servants.
On the contrary, the priority should be to serve the needs of learners and society.
In conclusion, the ministry of should adopt an outcomes-based curriculum framework that has been adopted by East African universities and stick to educational reforms that were proposed by Dr Kamunge’s task force.
The writer is a professor of education at Catholic University of Eastern Africa and former coordinator of Research and Evaluation at the Kenya Institute of Education. [email protected]
