It’s a masterstroke. Hardly anybody expected that, barely two weeks into President William Ruto’s tenure, a roadmap on reforms in the education sector would have been unveiled. That came after commentators and critics of the way the sector was being managed were regularly dismissed by the outgoing Cabinet Secretary that they were busybodies that should be ignored.
The constitution of the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms, with terms of reference to review all aspects of the management of education at all levels, indeed confirms the assertion by the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Harold Wilson, that “a week is a long time in politics”.
It’s through the political changes at the leadership of the country and the Education ministry that the environment in the sector has changed dramatically for the better.
At the outset, it must be understood that the reform team is not limited to addressing the challenges bedevilling the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) as generally perceived. The challenges of tertiary institutions of learning, especially public universities, are equally daunting. Looking at the task ahead and the time frame of six months, I get the impression that the team has to burn the midnight oil to produce the report and its appropriate recommendations on time.
However, there could be a way out of this challenge. The terms of reference can be divided into three: Those that require immediate, intermediate and long-term solutions, in line with the school calendar. Clearly, the calendar of basic education institutions, which was adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, should not be affected by the anticipated changes that will arise from the team’s recommendations. Let me elaborate.
In three months, the first CBC cohort of students will join junior secondary school (JSS). There are urgent matters associated with the transition, such as the method of assessment of the candidates, selection criteria for them to join JSS, categorisation of secondary schools, appropriate structure of CBC, teacher development and deployment, and the anticipated transition from JSS to senior secondary school (SSS), which need be tackled. There is also the appropriate funding arrangement of basic education institutions.
Compounding these issues is that the system of education has been described in terms of the structure, such as 7-4-2-3 and 8-4-4, and not the curriculum offered. CBC is different in that the system is being described in terms of the curriculum. And herein lies the crux of the matter: Could CBC be amended, retained and offered in a more appropriate structure than conceived?
Suppose, for example, JSS was reduced to two years and domiciled in primary schools and SSS increased to four years and undertaken in the existing secondary schools? The CBC structure would then change to 2-6-2-4-3. And the mighty challenge of ‘double intakes’ of students in secondary schools in 2023 and 2024 would not arise; nor would secondary schools require to put up additional infrastructure for a six-year structure as conceived.
Furthermore, that would enable SSS to choose the optional curriculum pathways to offer. It would be very expensive for every school to attempt to offer three pathways concurrently, hence adoption of this structure would enable the ministry and the Treasury to immediately realign the sector’s budget to the necessary funding framework, which would be cheaper than the current CBC structure since infrastructural demands for secondary schools would be minimal.
Henry Ford, the “father of the automobile industry”, quipped: “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.” It’s possible that most Kenyans will be conservative in their thinking, as was the case in the US in Ford’s time. The working group will have to balance between accommodating the views of the public and the necessity to embrace new, progressive ideas.
Let the team release part one of its report that would exclusively address CBC’s challenges in two months to enable the government to address them before January. The rest could be addressed and covered in the second part of the report by March next year. BY DAILY NATION