Transition to CBC enters homestretch, says Magoha

The team mandated to drive the transition from 8-4-4 to the new competency based curriculum (CBC) has concluded data compilation from pre-primary to university.

Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha said this was a major milestone since the data will inform the subsequent stages in implementation of the 2-6-3-3-3 system.

“All details of pre-primary to university level institutions can now be accessed from a database at the click of a button,” Prof Magoha last week when he closed one of the three data processing centres at Centre for Mathematics, Science and Technology Education in Africa.

Other centres that started in April 2020 were based at the Kenya Institute for Curriculum Development (KICD) and the Kenya Education Management Institute in Nairobi.

The 26-member task force was chaired by Fatuma Chege, Kenyatta University’s deputy vice-chancellor.

It is mandated to explore ways of enhancing access, relevance, equity and quality for effective implementation of the new curriculum emphasising practical teaching.

The team has resolved the question of national examinations and location of junior secondary schools.

Based on the team’s proposals, President Uhuru Kenyatta announced in August 2019 that junior secondary school shall be domiciled at secondary school level.

The President added that there shall be no summative national examination at Grade Six.

Prof Chege’s team received views from parents, teacher unions, private education providers, and head-teachers.

The team will retreat to process aspects of curriculum implementation based on information received from secondary sources.

Under the new system, elementary education is divided into pre-primary and primary education, taking two and six years respectively.

Pupils will then advance to a three-year junior secondary school before joining the senior secondary level for another three years where they will specialise depending on ability and interest.

From here, they will either enrol for vocational training centres or pursue university education.