Kenya National Union of Teachers leadership yesterday faulted the composition of a task force set to iron out contentious issues in the new curriculum.
Union secretary general Wilson Sossion criticised Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha for locking out teachers in the reforms task force.
The taskforce inaugurated in July 1 has 26 members and seeks to drive the transition from 8-4-4 to 2-6-3-3 education system.
Sossion said ministry officials were peddling misleading reports that teachers are right at the centre, and are participating in the development of CBC.
"Teachers being the principal implementers of the curriculum have effectively been locked out of the education reform process," Sossion said yesterday.
The task force is led by Fatuma Chege who is Kenyatta University's deputy vice-chancellor in charge of administration.
However, Magoha dismissed the claims saying the task force had involved heads of primary and secondary schools.
Teachers are represented in the team by secondary school heads association chair Indimuli Kahi and his primary schools' counterpart Nicholas Gathemia.
Sossion said the reception of the curriculum among teachers was mostly negative but warned that teachers will not take the blame should the curriculum implementation fail.
"Knut still calls for suspension of the CBC implementation because the entire process of developing the new education system and roll out is flawed," Sossion said.
Proposal
The union recommends a four-pronged approach for implementation of the new curriculum.
It will include a pilot basis in 2020 and 2021, formative, internal summative and external summative evaluation reports in 2023 and national implementation of the revised curriculum in 2024.
"We are not going to cheat the public that we are teaching. The education of your children will be compromised through this process because teachers don't have the capacity and have not been adequately trained," Sossion said.
Sossion also questioned the legality of the process, saying the rollout was done without the legal requirement of a sessional paper approved by Parliament.
The union also says the government failed to involve local academic experts, with foreigners dominating consultancy in the reform process.
"As long as professional steps of reviewing a curriculum continue to be ignored and experts in curriculum development and implementation are excluded in the process, no major reforms will ever be realised," he said.
He further dismissed reports that the union wants Junior Secondary hosted in primary schools terming the claims immature.
The new 2-6-3-3 system is replacing the 8-4-4, which has been discredited for being too examination-centred.
(edited by O. Owino)
