Treasury on the spot over CBC funds delay

Senate Committee on Education chair Alice Milgo. [Boniface Okendo, Standard]

The Senate Committee on Education has warned that the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) is headed for a major crisis due to failure by Treasury to release funds to schools.

Committee chair Alice Milgo said the delay by Treasury to disburse funds could affect continuity of the new education system.

“The Senate Committee on Education is fully behind the Competency-Based Curriculum as it will provide skills for our children, but funding is turning out to be a new challenge,” said Dr Milgo.

Milgo was speaking yesterday in Naivasha, when Senate committee members met stakeholders in the education sector to discuss the implementation of the curriculum.

According to the committee, the most affected are primary school pupils who will be joining Grade Six in May next year.

Members yesterday said that over 1,000 public schools across the country had not received learning materials under the Digital Learning Programme (DLP), due to lack of funding.

Milgo noted that the Committee was keen on having a total of 1,119 public schools supplied with learning materials under the programme.

While lauding the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) for its commitment to making sure that CBC was successful, Milgo said they were ready to summon the Treasury Cabinet secretary over the delay in releasing funds.

On the controversial compulsory Teacher Professional Development (TPD) training programme, Milgo challenged the government to cater for the financial logistics.

Her sentiments were echoed by nominated senator Getrude Musuruve, who said that the government should cater fully for the training.

“We support the move to train teachers under the new curriculum, but the government should fund this as an incentive to the teaching fraternity,” she said.

Dr Musuruve, who represents people with disability, added that more funds should be allocated to the education docket, and mainly in supporting students with special needs.

“We are impressed by the measures put in place by the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development in making sure that students with special needs can learn,” she said.

Meanwhile, KICD Chief Executive Officer Charles Ong’ondo, said they had started the process of engaging education stakeholders on the new curriculum.

“We are committed in this exercise of making sure that the CBC is successful and we shall in future involve the senate committee in all our undertakings,” said Prof Ong’ondo.