Key forum to chart way for new syllabus starts today

Students undertaking exams. [File, Standard]

Anxiety on whether a national exam will be administered to Grade Six pupils will end today when a task force tables its report at the national curriculum conference.

The task force will also make a decision on whether the national roll-out of the new curriculum will be extended to Grade Four next year.

The Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) was rolled out in all schools on January 3 in Pre-Primary 1 and 2 and Grade 1 to Grade 3.

However, delegates at the National Conference on Curriculum Reforms will today assess progress in the execution of the CBC and suggest implementation road map.

What has, however, kept parents and learners guessing is whether there will be primary education exit examination to admit students to secondary schools.

The Government has already stated that students will sit national examinations at the end of Grade Nine and Grade 12 of the CBC, with Grade Three pupils only subjected to school-based assessments.

This means the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) will be retained and a new set of examinations introduced after three years of secondary education under the new 2-6-3-3-3 education system. 

“We have decided that there will be an examination after Year Nine and after Year 12. The discourse of Year Six will be for the task force to advise us,” Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha said last month.

This means that today’s meeting, to be attended by more than 2,000 education stakeholders, will clarify whether decades-old Kenya Certificate of Primary Education will be scrapped or retained

Little clarity has also been made on Grade Three assessment,s with the Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) yet to clarify the contents of the evaluation tools for the learners.

The details to these contentious issues will be laid bare today during the third national conference on curriculum reforms to be graced by President Uhuru Kenyatta.

The theme of the Conference is Expanding Inclusion: Reaching Every Learner through the Education Reforms.

“This conference will take stock of the progress that we have made in the design and implementation of the CBC that we rolled out in January 2019,” Prof Magoha said.

He said the conference will reflect on the gains made in the curriculum reforms process, deepen understanding on the approaches and provide opportunity for stakeholders to explore inclusion.

During today’s meeting, Magoha is expected to reveal key findings of the education task force he set up last month, and give clarity on sticking points that have threatened to disrupt smooth implementation of the CBC.

Magoha set up the task force, led by Prof Fatuma Chege, Kenyatta University Deputy Vice Chancellor in charge of Administration, to advise on the various challenges on the curriculum implementation.

Among the issues to be ironed out today is whether Grades 7-9 will be retained in primary school or moved to secondary school.

Under the new education system, learners are expected to study for two years at pre-primary before proceeding to grade one to six (three years in lower primary and three in upper primary).

They will then transit to Grades 7-9 (junior secondary school) before proceeding to grades 10 to 12 (senior secondary school).

Learners will then transit to university for another three years.

Placement of junior secondary school level of education has split various education stakeholders, including teachers unions.

Proposals have been floated that Grades 7-9 be domiciled in secondary school with others proposing that it be retained in primary school.

Proposed establishment

Other stakeholders have also proposed establishment of a separate set of institutions for the two grades.

The Standard has established that Magoha will today table options to be discussed on the fate of the new education level.

It also emerged that the report already handed to the Cabinet Secretary contains details of the teacher training needs and capacity building proposals that would equip teachers with requisite skills to effectively teach the new curriculum.

Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) and the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) say that teachers training still remains a challenge and must be addressed adequately.

Knut has already rejected the curriculum citing a flawed process, inadequately prepared teachers and lack of curriculum policy to offer the process legitimacy.