The Ministry of Education has come up late in the day with initiatives to publicise and engage the public on education reform.
The “quality dialogues” as they are dubbed will only be fruitful if the following questions are answered in the public eye.
The public needs to know: where the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) idea came from and why it was adopted, and what specific function it seeks to serve?
The answer to this question should carry the philosophy upon which this curriculum is founded and what new purpose it shall serve.
The second question is on why it was difficult for the nation to thoroughly prepare the entire curriculum and attendant tools like designs, policy paper and related guidelines before beginning implementation.
How can we be talking about international best practice when we are knowingly putting the cart before the horse? Why did we have to start before we were even prepared to start?
Even as the ministry leaders keep chest-thumping and yelling at the top of their voices that the train has already left the station, where is the teacher who is supposed to be steering it?
What are we going to achieve by treating teachers with disdain and lording the new curriculum over them?
Where are the pilot monitoring reports for the stakeholders to interrogate? The Ministry of Education and the associated semi-autonomous agencies operate by the taxes paid by the citizenry, and feedback and structured engagement during this reform window is not a privilege to be extended depending on the whims of the leadership.
The citizens need to be at the centre of these engagements.
Given that the Competency-Based Curriculum introduces a complete paradigm shift, what was difficult in having the process start with the primary teacher training colleges for this nation to have a new crop of teachers to deliver the shift?
Teachers are at the periphery and are being instructed literally through the window on what to do, yet they should be the experts.
The next question is: where are the competency frameworks for various levels?
The grey areas that currently exist do not bode well for the education sector and the new system being introduced.
The last minute release of Grade Three assessment guidelines tell a story on unpreparedness that should not be happening in the education sector.
How are learners being assessed? It is not possible for teachers to effectively assess learners when they have not been provided with guidance on competency frameworks for the levels and grades they teach.
The measurement of performance generally becomes guesswork at best.
The conspicuous gaps and questions that still remain unanswered lead to poor quality teaching and learning material development since players have to skip stages and stretch themselves to deliver.
The quality of publishing and book writing for the new curriculum is deficient since players are unable to see the whole picture.
The Ministry of Education needs to put all cards on the table when engaging stakeholders.
The kind of tokenism being experienced in a bid to silence voices that are offering different opinion needs to stop.
The variety of ideas and approaches needs to be tolerated at this point in time. The policymaker (ministry officials) and the practitioners (teachers) need to sit down now and work out something that will not only stand the test of time but provide a clear philosophical underpinning for the reform process.
We need to have a proper anchor to move the reform forward.
The Cabinet secretary for Education needs to facilitate quality dialogue without stifling voices that may not be in line with his current thoughts.
The writer is an education and strategy consultant at Tathmini Consulting; [email protected]
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