A recent study has revealed the views of Kenyan parents about the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC).
According to Twaweza, the cost of the new education system coupled with the quality of training teachers have and the demand CBC has on parents took center stage in the study that sought to get the views of Kenyans.
At the same time, the study found out that citizens prefer the CBC over the 8-4-4 system.
“Almost all citizens (96%) have heard of the competency-based curriculum (CBC) and citizens favor the CBC over the previous 8-4-4 system. Half (47%) say the CBC is better, including one out of ten (11%) who say it is much better, while four out of ten (38%) say the previous “8-4-4” system is better,” the study revealed.
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The main change proposed by citizens (74%) on CBC is to reduce the financial cost on the parents’ side. As such, the most widely proposed change put forward by citizens for how the CBC could be improved is to reduce the cost to parents, cited by half (54%) of citizens.
“Other challenges cited by parents include that teachers are not well trained in teaching the CBC (14%), that children get complicated assignments (12%), that implementation is not clear (10%) and confusion over where children should go for junior high school (7%),” the study further stated.
Other suggestions include to make resources and equipment more widely available (23%), reduce the involvement of parents (19%), build the capacity of teachers (10%), reduce the workload on learners (10%), better balance the workload (8%) and provide more education to the public on CBC (7%). One out of six citizens (17%) suggest the CBC should be dropped entirely.
Part of Kenyans response to the questions asked by Twaweza in the study has been to adopt a competency-based curriculum (CBC) for schooling.
CBC is designed to emphasize the development of key skills and applying those competencies to real-life situations. It has been in place in Kenyan schools since 2017, replacing the previous outcome-based curriculum.
In October 2022, the government of Kenya established the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPR) to collect views from the public on among other issues in the education sector, the implementation of the CBC and to make recommendations.
The study revealed that most citizens (66%) are aware that the government has created a taskforce to review the CBC. Citizens are three times as likely to think the taskforce will achieve its objectives (44%) than to think it will not (15%).
Others say that most people don’t trust such taskforces (2%), that it is one-sided (2%) or unrepresentative (2%) or that it has no political support and is designed to fail (2%). Others say that most people don’t trust such taskforces (2%), that it is one-sided (2%) or unrepresentative (2%) or that it has no political support and is designed to fail (2%).
