The Presidential Working Party on Education Reform (PWPER) was formed by President William Ruto on September 29, 2022, to address concerns raised by Kenyans on implementing a Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).
The team led by Prof Raphael Munavu concluded its work in slightly under a year and on August 1, 2023, submitted the final report to the President with a myriad of recommendations.
The recommendations were based on public views, where 51.15 per cent proposed the continuation of CBC but with changes.
In the changes, the initial structure of 2-6-3-3 was slightly altered to 2-6-3-3-3 to comprise 2 years of Pre-Primary, 6 years of Primary, 3 years in Junior School, 3 years of Senior School and a minimum of 3 years of Tertiary education.
The new structure also provides the Alternative Provision of Basic Education and Training (APBET) for adult learners.
The proposed structure also allows learners from Senior School and Vocational levels to join the world of work as shown below without necessarily pursuing tertiary education.
Junior secondary retained in primary schools
However, the working team recommended hosting Junior secondary schools (JSS) in existing Primary schools under a comprehensive school system where Pre-Primary, Primary school and Junior School are managed as one institution.
“Most of the submissions indicated that Grade 7 and 8 learners would experience challenges in settling down and integrating with Secondary School learners who are relatively much older. Cost considerations were also presented to justify hosting Junior Schools in existing Primary Schools as Standard 7 and 8 classrooms will be unoccupied,” the report said.
From the submissions, the report said, there was also a conscious concern about the psychosocial challenges that would arise if Grade 6 learners transit to Secondary Schools located far away from their parents.
The team also dropped the “Secondary” from Junior Secondary and Senior Secondary School. As such, there should only be Junior and Senior schools after learners transition from primary school to Grade 6 upon sitting the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA).
Reduced subjects
Further, the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) was tasked with reducing the number of learning areas from 9 to 7 at Lower Primary; 12 to 8 at Upper Primary and 14 to 9 at Junior School.
The learning areas at Pre-Primary were set at 5 and 7 at Senior School.
The working group said this was aimed at addressing subject overload, which was a source of uproar amongst parents who complained of the cost burden laid on them and work overload on learners.
Grade 5 will now have Language activities, Mathematical activities, Environmental activities, psychomotor and creative activities and religious education.
Under the initial CBC arrangement, learners in the lower primary between Grades 1-3 were to take up eight subjects, while those in the upper primary were to take 10 compulsory subjects.
The 10 compulsory subjects in the upper primary were English, Kiswahili, Mathematics, Home Science, Agriculture, Science and Technology, Religious Education, Creative Arts, Physical and Health Education and Social Studies.
Junior secondary had 12 compulsory subjects which include: English, Kiswahili, Mathematics, Integrated Science, Health Education, Pre-Technical, Pre-career Education, Social Studies, Religious Education, Business Studies, Agriculture, Life Skills, Sports and Physical Education.
There were also seven optional subjects including foreign languages, Kenya Sign Language, Indigenous Languages, Computer Science, Home Science, Performing Arts and Visual Arts.
Weight transferred from class assessment to final assessment
On assessment and transition, the Competency-Based Assessment Framework (CBAF) guidelines were adopted to address the challenges of high stakes in examinations witnessed during KCPE and KCSE under 8-4-4.
A significant weight has been placed on the final assessment although the results will not be the sole determinant of a learner’s final score or influence his or her transition to the next level.
Learners will sit a final assessment at the end of Upper primary (Grade 6), Junior school (Grade 9) and Senior school (Grade 12) to be administered by the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC).
However, the summative assessment will account for 60 per cent of the final score, while the class assessment will account for 40 per cent.
Under the initial CBC structure, class-based assessment accounted for 60 per cent of the final score, while summative assessment accounted for 40 per cent.
“The stakeholders raised concerns over the integrity of formative assessment, citing compromised scores uploaded into the KNEC portal by the teachers and commercial agents at the internet cyber cafes. In this regard, the stakeholders recommended that external assessment by the KNEC should carry more weight in determining the overall performance of learners,” the report said.
Under 8-4-4, school-based assessments were administered during the learning process but did not form part of the final score except for some Secondary school subjects which required practical and project work.
Such subjects included Woodwork and Agriculture and Home Science projects.
Assessment under the 8-4-4 system was primarily summative which made examinations high stakes affair thereby encouraging unhealthy competition for limited slots in the subsequent levels of education with learners who failed to obtain quality grades in the examinations often dropping out of school.
The shift from examinations to assessments was undertaken to ensure that outcomes such as values that may not be readily assessed in a one-off examination and summative assessment are considered.
Abolition of school ranks
The Presidential working team further recommended that the Ministry of Education should discontinue the current categorisation of public Secondary schools as National, Extra-county, County and Sub-county; and adopt a categorization based on career pathways for Senior schools.
It was also recommended that a mandatory three-month community service programme be introduced for graduates of Senior School before joining Tertiary institutions and a further nine months of mandatory community service after completion of Tertiary education.
A certificate of compliance to community service will be issued as proof before admission into the world of work.
