What you need to know about CBC pathways

Education CS Dr Julius Ogamba accompanied by PS Prof Julius Bitok during the releasing of 2025 KCSE results at AIC Chebisas Boys in Eldoret Uasin Gishu Country on December 9, 2026. [Peter Ochieng, Standard]

I was almost scandalised recently when I visited a senior school and sat through a session meant to ‘sensitise’ parents on senior secondary school pathways under the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC). What I heard was not guidance. No. It was misdirection. A teacher, speaking with the confidence of authority, presented the pathways as rigid corridors leading to a few predetermined careers. Parents listened anxiously. Learners sat quietly, absorbing fear.

Around the same time, I wrote a brief social media post on my Facebook page, outlining a few basic facts about CBC pathways. It was nothing elaborate, just clarifications grounded in policy and practice. The response was overwhelming. Messages poured in from parents and teachers, with many expressing relief, others confessing confusion, and some admitting outright fear about the choices their children were being pushed to make. That reaction made one thing clear: there is a serious information gap. This article attempts to explain, calmly and fully, the philosophy behind Senior School pathways.

Let me start with what the teacher said during that school visit about the Arts and Sports Science pathway. He used the statement, “With this pathway, these are the only careers available,” as fact. This was neither factual nor faithful to CBC policy. It betrayed a fundamental misunderstanding of how modern education works and how CBC itself is designed.

Under the Competency-Based Curriculum, Senior School is not a narrow corridor but a wide, well-lit highway of possibilities. Learning at this level is organised into pathways not to trap learners into fixed destinies, but to help them discover their strengths, talents, and emerging purposes. CBC begins from a simple but profound truth that children are different, intelligence is diverse, and society thrives when all talents are nurtured.

The Ministry of Education has issued circulars and guidelines to help schools operationalise these pathways. These circulars are meant to guide implementation, not to dictate life outcomes or prematurely close doors. Unfortunately, in some cases, Ministry circulars have been read mechanically, interpreted rigidly, or communicated selectively. The result has been unnecessary fear among parents and confusion among learners.

At Senior School, there are three broad pathways: the Arts and Sports Science Pathway, the Social Sciences Pathway, and the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Pathway. Each pathway is legitimate and is nationally recognised. Each leads to viable academic, professional, and leadership futures. None is superior to the other; they serve different kinds of talents and aspirations.

The Arts and Sports Science Pathway has suffered the greatest injustice from misinterpretation. Because of how some schools have explained Ministry circulars, parents have been led to believe that choosing arts closes doors to teaching, law, education, or leadership. This is simply not true. The circulars describe pathway clustering for curriculum delivery, not the permanent sealing-off of careers or university opportunities.

Modern education is interdisciplinary by design. I was recently at the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom, where Film Studies is housed within the Faculty of Engineering. That is not a mistake. It is a fundamental statement. Creativity, technology, communication, and human imagination increasingly intersect. This is the porous nature of pathways, and CBC is built on that same logic. That is why those in STEM may become theatre and film professionals.

The Arts and Sports Science pathway brings together creative and expressive arts, theatre, music, fine art, film, dance, sports science, communication and human expression. These disciplines interrogate human behaviour, society, ethics, power, culture, and meaning. A learner who follows this pathway can still progress into teacher education, law, journalism, communication, public administration, diplomacy, curriculum development, and educational leadership. Law is language. Teaching is communication. Leadership is persuasion and vision. The arts sharpen these foundations.

The Social Sciences Pathway focuses on history, geography, religious education, economics, sociology, political studies, and related disciplines. It prepares learners for governance, policy, research, teaching, law, and civic leadership. The STEM Pathway focuses on scientific and technological innovation, producing doctors, engineers, scientists, and technologists. Yet none of these pathways exists in isolation. They are interconnected, complementary, and intentionally flexible, exactly as CBC policy envisages.

It is therefore essential that teachers, principals, curriculum implementers, and education officers read Ministry of Education circulars in context, interpret them professionally, and explain them accurately. A circular must be read together with the CBC philosophy, university entry frameworks, and lifelong learning principles. When circulars are simplified into slogans or threats, students are misled, parents are alarmed, and talent is suppressed.

Senior School covers three formative years, generally for learners between the ages of fifteen and seventeen. It is designed not as an endpoint but as a threshold, a bridge between foundational learning and the wider demands of higher education, the world of work, and responsible citizenship. It is a pre-career and pre-university experience, not a final declaration of destiny.

All learners take seven subjects, including English, Kiswahili, Community Service Learning, and Mathematics, with Core or Essential Mathematics taken according to pathway choice and demonstrated ability. Beyond these, learners select additional subjects with guidance, combining depth with flexibility. A learner may draw from one pathway or move across several, depending on aptitude, aspiration, and personality. CBC does not ask young people to decide who they will be forever. No. It simply invites them to choose where to begin.

What CBC demands from us is not panic, but responsible interpretation. Not fear, but informed guidance. Parents deserve clarity. Learners deserve honesty. And Ministry circulars deserve to be read as policy instruments, not weapons of intimidation. In the end, CBC pathways are not prisons but guides. Education is not about narrowing children too early. It is about opening doors responsibly. CBC pathways, far from being cast in stone, are drawn in pencil, open to refinement as learners grow and discover who they are becoming. Let us stop misleading our children.