Magoha: Infrastructure key challenge in CBC transition

Top secondary schools are facing a looming infrastructural setback ahead of admission of  Competence-Based Curriculum (CBC) pioneers into junior secondary in May.

Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha admitted yesterday that the available CBC classes are not enough to accommodate students.

The CS noted that the infrastructural challenge is expected to be majorly felt in top national schools.

"We are going to reconsider creating more classrooms for the popular schools because it looks like everybody wants to go there yet we are very stingy with the infrastructure," said Magoha.

He was speaking after commissioning a CBC classroom at Kenya High School in Nairobi.

In Kenya High School, for instance, Magoha said the government will add four more classrooms to accommodate high numbers of candidates eyeing top schools.

Other schools Magoha said will get additional classrooms include Alliance High and Pangani Girls.

"We will add classes so that all those people who are clamouring to come here can have an opportunity to learn in good schools," said the CS.

He said construction of the first phase of CBC classes is at 90 per cent.

Magoha said the ministry targets to build 6,487 classes in the first phase and about 4,000 in the second which will be rolled out after the release of KCSE exam results.

Lack of other facilities such as laboratories and dormitories are also expected to cause a crisis in the transition period.

Magoha looped in principals into the expansion of school infrastructure. He said the heads know that part of the annual capitation allocated to every student should go to the expansion of infrastructure.

"It is entirely up to the heads of schools on how they use that money but there is a portion that is supposed to go to infrastructure. It is also easy to identify the infrastructural gaps because the schools are on Geographical Information System," said the CS.

Additional facilities will be established after completion of CBC classes.