CBC Grade Four roll-out begins next term - Magoha

The Education Ministry will roll out the new Competency Based Curriculum for Grade Four learners beginning January.

Education CS George Magoha said the government has supplied Grade Four textbooks to 97 per cent of the counties.

"The remaining counties will be reached before schools open for the first term in January," he said.

Magoha added the ministry had experienced challenges in distributing to those counties due to the ongoing rains. He spoke yesterday while announcing this year's KCSE results. 

The last batch of teachers for the new curriculum is being trained over the holiday in preparation for January, Magoha said.

Teachers Service Commission CEO Nancy Macharia said the training of 106,320 teachers began this week where about 7,000 will be trained for special needs education. 

Some 18,000 teachers are from private schools while the rest are from state schools.

Macharia added a total of 228,000 teachers will be trained on how to teach the new curriculum. 

"This means we have a critical mass of staff who will deliver the curriculum," she said. 

The government has raised the preservice teacher training qualification from certificate (P1) to diploma to improve the quality of education. 

"A new curriculum for this new level of training has been completed and the new cohort of learners will be admitted to various colleges in 2020," Magoha said.

The first batch of students under the new curriculum will transition from primary to junior secondary school in 2023. 

A task force set up by Magoha to advise on curriculum reforms is finalizing regulations and guidelines on the establishment of institutions under the basic education framework. 

The task force is also recommending a monitoring and evaluation system in 2020 to guide decisions made under the new curriculum. 

The CS said he was positive the new curriculum would be a success and urged critics to get on board. 

In April, Magoha declared a four-day national CBC training for teachers a success despite resistance by Knut.

The CS said he was satisfied with the turnout of teachers.

But Knut secretary general Wilson Sossion described the exercise as the “biggest fraud” in the education sector which would ruin quality.