Education ministry has not trained teachers well on new curriculum

I recently had a candid discussion with teachers undergoing in-service training in the early years education. Some of them had gone through the two-week continuous professional teacher development programme on competency based curriculum (CBC). The others were hoping to be enlisted for the exercise in August or December. 

We veered from the training to discuss the level of preparedness of teachers in implementation of the new curriculum. Many of them complained teachers are ill-prepared to handle the new curriculum.

Our discussion came against the backdrop of preliminary results of an assessment of Grade Three pupils which revealed that half of those sampled could not muster 50 per cent benchmark in English, Kiswahili and Mathematics. The monitoring hinted further at a majority of the pupils having weak comprehension skills. This is baffling considering the learners have gone through the new curriculum for over two years. Does this tell us something about the level of preparedness of our teachers?

My discussion with my student-teachers confirmed my greatest fears–teachers are not prepared adequately to handle the new curriculum!

We have to accept that the CBC represents quite a revolutionary streak in our school curriculum. In fact it represents a sea-change in how teaching is organised in the classroom. This paradigm shift in the teacher’s craft demands getting every bolt and nut right. Learners should be actively involved in their learning while the teacher should only facilitate the child to learn. Aside from this, assessment for learning should be stressed at the expense of assessment of learning and assessment as learning.

Judged as a system, curriculum development and implementation has teachers as a major component. They need to know how to go about implementing the curriculum. Otherwise, the whole process may either tend to entropy or be implemented in a manner that makes a mockery of the whole exercise. This is why we should pay attention to professional teacher development and make sure it proceeds without any blot.

Unfortunately, the Ministry of Education has not done this so far. The issue of continuous teacher development for the CBC has been wanting. Teachers have been coerced into the trainings while top Education ministry officials have tended not to brook any criticism (positive or otherwise) on the implementation process. The implementation has been handled in a very cavalier manner.

For the country to succeed in this exercise, we need to be honest and dissect what might have gone wrong. First, we should appreciate the difficult task our curriculum developers have given us. Other than the competencies a teacher should guide the learner to attain, the same teacher has a plethora of issues to help the learner acquire. These things radically change how to go about teaching in virtually all the curriculum areas and levels. This can not be done where the teacher is ill-prepared to handle the content.

Some of the issues that should be examined besides the general competencies are: Pertinent and contemporary issues, core values, community service learning, parental empowerment and engagement and learner participation in non-formal activities. Can we expect a teacher to competently deliver on the learning outcomes after being taken through a two-week programme on how to facilitate the learner through the various content areas? I beg to differ.

Focusing on implementation without paying attention to the nitty-gritty of quality in the exercise serves a political score at the expense of education. Yes, I accept curriculum development is a political exercise and the boundary between the two is blurred. But we should be guided by rules governing educational change and its management and not the political mileage.

Great disservice

Bulldozing how the exercise should be carried out without paying attention to the grey areas noted by those without the implementation orbit does this country a great disservice. We should not put the cart before the horse. Let us give room for both divergent and convergent views on virtually all the condiments of the curriculum implementation process.

In-service training of teachers for the CBC needs fresh examination. We need to ask various questions. First, where should professional teacher development should be domiciled. Is Teacher’s Service Commission better placed to handle the exercise? What has been the practice before and what was wrong with it? Between Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development, Quality Assurance and Standards wing of the Education ministry, TSC and Kenya National Examinations Council, which better understands the curriculum?

I fear if we don’t get right the issue of continuous professional teacher development, we stand the risk of failing in this progressive curriculum.

Dr Ndaloh is a curriculum and teaching expert at Moi University. ndaloagumba@yahoo.com