William Ruto plan to review CBC kicks off – Business Daily
Grade Three learners at Patrician Primary School-Kabongo in Eldoret being examined in the recent national assessment under CBC. PHOTO | JARED NYATAYA | NMG
The new administration has announced plans to review the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) as it moves to address concerns raised by stakeholders on the new education system.
President William Ruto said yesterday the government will establish an Education Reform Task Force that will take in the views of Kenyans on the curriculum.
This comes on the back of concerns raised by parents on the double transition of learners to secondary schools in January amid limited accommodation and the high cost of the CBC.
“We will establish an Education Reform Task Force in the Presidency which will be launched in the coming weeks,” he said during his inaugural speech at the Moi International Sports Centre.
Secondary schools are set to receive Form one learners under the 8-4-4 system as well as the pioneer cohort of Grade Seven learners under the CBC, in what is bound to push enrollment from 4.3 million to 6 million in the first year.
The current class eight lot will sit their Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) in December and will constitute the sixth group of learners to be admitted to secondary schools under the government’s policy of 100 per cent transition.
The 100 percent transition policy is one of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s legacy projects in education alongside the implementation of the CBC.
Parents in low-income brackets have over the recent past decried the “numerous hidden costs” of keeping their children in school under the education system that emphasizes practical skills rather than theory.
Aside from spending extra on books, learning materials and printing, they have wondered if the assignments that learners come home with are meant to tie them down as a punishment.
The Jubilee administration has been categorical that in the curriculum design and handbooks distributed to schools, the learning institutions were not told to ask parents to buy anything for the implementation of CBC.
It maintained that the plan under the CBC is that teachers use what is readily available in the environment to enhance learning.
The Kenya Kwanza administration in its manifesto seeks to deliver equitable education where every child has a chance to fulfil their potential and rise to the highest level of accomplishment, despite their social background.
The manifesto notes that while universal primary education was achieved through Free Primary Education (FPE) in 2003, the education outcomes remain highly inequitable.
It notes that considerable progress has been made towards universal secondary education, but the current tiered system places the better-resourced national schools out of the poor’s reach.
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