An open letter sent to President William Ruto has outlined proposals and highlighted four areas of interest concerning the implementation of the Competence Based Curriculum (CBC).
The letter from Usawa Agenda Executive Director Emmanuel Manyasa states that the transition from the 8-4-4 system remains a formidable challenge, causing confusion and significant distress to learners, parents, private investors in education, and the entire education system.
Manyasa said the successful implementation of CBC, or indeed any curriculum switch, requires clear agency, fidelity to the plan, focus on the overall goal, and adequate funding.
“It is with great humility that I pen this letter to you (President Ruto) on this International Day of Education with this unique request: save the CBC from collapse. I believe that I speak for many. Our country has had many failed attempts at reforming our education system. Most of the failures, stemming from haphazard Implementation and under-resourcing,” read the letter in part.
“The advent of the CBC through an elaborately consultative process renewed hope of remedying past failures. But as you know, the implementation process was bangled by your predecessor’s regime.”
Details of the Open Letter Send to Ruto
It added, “Haphazard implementation, departure from the CBC framework, and strongarming teachers and other critical actors in the sector to sing along while the system decayed under its belly now dog this system.”
“You were handed an already bangled the process in which all the actions that were being taken amounted to kicking the can down the hill to save face and the day.
You confronted this early in your presidency, having to immediately deal with the crisis of the transition to junior school and provided an interim solution of domiciling Junior Secondary School learners in primary schools. It was the most pragmatic solution in the circumstances.”
The letter further read, “You then constituted the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER), the third such party tasked with education reforms in the country.
While the PWPER report made bold proposals, which may have a lasting positive impact on our education system, their proposals from the 8-4-4 to the 2-6-6-3 system are suboptimal.”
Also Read: Ichung’wah Slams Kalonzo, Says He Can’t Match Ruto After Mumias Sugar Remarks
Four Key Issues of Concern Raised on CBC Implementation
Usawa Agenda Director opined that the lack of a dedicated agency responsible for steering the transition has resulted in poor coordination and lack of accountability, both of which are essential for successful reform.
He mentioned that infidelity in the CBC framework has clouded the original vision and is causing setbacks in achieving the desired outcomes, which could abort the whole reform process.
Another issue raised was the unpredictable and fragmented funding for the transition, leading to delays in financial allocation and disbursement.
This, he said, is because CBC implementation commenced without an implementation plan, which should be a major factor in assessing implementation readiness.
At the same time, Manyasa stated that the inadequate number and diversity of teachers, along with infrastructure deficiencies in schools, undermine the ability of these schools to provide high-quality education, especially since Junior Secondary School (JSS) is critical to the success of CBC.
Also Read: ODM Calls Out State House After Heckling in Ruto’s Event
Proposal on Structures of Implementing CBC
Manyasa proposed a recategorization of public secondary schools based on the pre-8-4-4 model, where, depending on capacity, some schools offered education only up to O-level, some offered O-level and one stream of A-level (Arts), while others offered O-level and two streams of A-level (Arts and Sciences).
He proposes Category One to be Junior School. Category Two would be Junior School and Senior School (Humanities stream), Category Three would be Junior and Senior School (Humanities and STEM stream), and Select TVET institutions would be Senior School (Technical stream).
These options, he said, enable junior schools to be generally day schools, as envisaged in the framework, to allow constant interaction between learners, parents, and teachers, and also allow the use of surplus capacity in TVET institutions.
The letter states that this approach is easy to implement because the majority of secondary schools are day schools, and it alleviates the looming, catastrophic shortage of teachers and facilities for the technical stream of senior schools.
Follow our WhatsApp Channel and join our WhatsApp Group for real-time news updates
