The future of the much-touted reformed education system is on hold and will be decided in January next year.
Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed told the Star last evening that an education conference in January will review the new 2-6-3-3-3 system and decide the way forward.
“This conference was to be held Monday next week, but because the evaluation has not not been done and marking of KCSE exam is still on, we decided to push it to early next year,” Amina said.
She said children who are already in the new system will not be affected. “Its full roll-out will wait for the conference. We expect to come up with a clear road map,” She she added.
She denied that the system had collapsed or been suspended for lack of money and resources. The new system was part of the wide-ranging education reforms that were to eliminate rote learning to pass exams in favour of developing individual learners and recognising their abilities.
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Earlier yesterday, Amina told the Senate Education committee chaired by Uasin Gishu senator Margaret Kamar that the new system, which has been piloted in select schools, has faced many challenges. They include lack of necessary infrastructure, enough properly trained teachers and required teaching materials.
“We are not ready to roll out the programme throughout the country. The worst that can happen is to roll out what we are not comfortable with. The design is fantastic, but the devil is in the details of implementation,” Amina told the committee. It was attended by senators Sam Ongeri (Kisii), Okong’o Omogeni (Nyamira), and John Kinyua (Laikipia).
Part of the infrastructures required for the overhaul includes phasing out of desks and replacing them with tables.
The suspended curriculum was meant to be more practical and involve less paperwork.
Despite calls by other stakeholders that the system be delayed until most of the infrastructure was in place, then Education CS Fred Matiang’i insisted on rolling it out.
The 2-6-6-3 system was to comprise two years of pre-school, six years of primary school, six years of high school, and three years of tertiary education. Classes are to be referred to as grades, rather than standards.
The inaugural students were to complete high school in 2027. In effect, 8-4-4 was to continue until the last batch sat Form 4 exams in 2026.
This means the old system was to be wiped out a year later in 2028. But that will not happen, at least not in the near future. Grade 1 and 2 pupils who were in the pilot project involving abut 350 schools in Grade 3 will now be accommodated in the 8-4-4 system.
Amina told the committee that pupils will not be affected as even those in Grade 3 will be absorbed in the current system.
Education PS Kipsang Belio,who accompanied Amina, said there should be no problem going back to the old system as the pupils were only in Grades 1 and 2 and not in Grade 3.
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“Technically nobody is going to Grade 4 in this curriculum, we only have Class 1 and 2. So there should be no problem at all,” he said.
Director of the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development Julius Jwan concurred with Belio. He clarified that reverting to the old system should not have any problems as in the early years children only acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills.
“Why is there this perception that some people are moving from somewhere to another huge thing somewhere else which is not the case? I mean competence-based curriculum is just teachers supplying their pedagogy differently. It is nothing like moving from here to somewhere else,” he told he committee.
Initial assessment of the pilot reports by KICD and Unesco revealed positive progress in the pilot phase of the curriculum.
According to the early assessment report by KICD, the quality of competency-based curriculum (CBC) implementation stood at 56 per cent.
This is six points above the minimum threshold set out for global standards for such an exercise set at 50 per cent.
Teacher assessment feedback based on learners’ achievement stands at 50 per cent, while quality of the learning environment and support for the CBC stands at 62 per cent.
Those familiar with the curriculum reveal that budget constraints hugely contributed to what some call the suspension or collapse of the curriculum.
The new system also suffered lack of multi-agency cooperation and poor public awareness during the pilot period.
During the pilot phase assessment, the KICD officials were supposed to work together with ministry officials, the Kenya National Examination Council Officials and the TSC.
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The implementing agency, the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development, in 2017-18 received about Sh900 million budget.
However, most of the funds were meant to cater for the recurrent expenses and less than Sh400 million directly targeted the implementation of the curriculum.
Part of the funds used in the implementation of the new model were from budgetary allocations while others were in the form of donations, grants and loans.
One of the biggest funds is that of the Primary Education Development Project (PRIEDE) between the Kenyan government and the World Bank.
The project partly sought to address challenges affecting early grade primary school education and the Early Grade Mathematics (EGM). including improved literacy and numeracy levels and access to textbooks.
Earlier reports indicated to fully implement the new system the government required close to Sh10 billion.
According to the Kenya National Union of Teachers secretary general implementing the curriculum in the current state of education was a “death wish” to the sector.
“Implementing CBC begins with the availability of resources and infrastructure. Before we look at the amount of funds given for the implementation remember some of our schools have no classes, teachers and even books. This already is a stumbling block in its implementation,” Sossion told the Star yesterday.
Drawbacks
A plan to test students in the fourth grade was also suffering before and the Kenya National Examination Council is yet to come up with an assessment framework.
Training of teachers conducted during the holidays has also been identified as an area of weakness as it is conducted by the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development instead of the Teachers Service Commission.
The training juggled between school holidays saw 170,000 teachers trained and began in December of 2017 with the curriculum developer setting aside Sh250 million for the exercise.
This means, the teachers only got six-weeks training in the three holidays of December, April and August this year. Sossion emphasises that training for a new curriculum needed more time for teachers to get things right.
Sossion says the two week trainings held was too shallow for a paradigm shift and most teachers do not understand the new teaching procedure.
“Training is sensitive and ought to be deep and continuous. It should be similar to college training to enable teachers to fully understand the curriculum.” he said.
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Regarding this, Jwan says the trainings was basic induction that will be followed by a programme by the Teachers Service Commission.
Kenya Primary Schools Heads Association chair Shem Ndolo raised fears that the implementation would go south should the government not re-look into the provision of support materials.
“We don’t want to be on the wrong side of history. This is our next generation put on the line. If the curriculum fails due to lack of support materials, their future is doomed,” Ndolo told the Star yesterday on phone.
Kenya Private Schools association chair Peter Ndolo yesterday called on the government to fund the curriculum if it is to succeed.
“Money should not be an issue fight for this new curriculum we have come this far,” Ndolo said.
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