By Hilton Mwabili
Education officials in Mombasa County have rolled out a mass teachers training programme to train all the public primary school teachers on Competence Based Curriculum (CBC).
Mombasa county director of education Peter Magiri and his Teachers Service Commission (TSC) counterpart Dr Samuel Marigat said the program is intended to ensure that all the teachers in Mombasa are CBC compliant.
Magiri explained that they came up with the programme after it emerged that many teachers in the county were not conversant with the new curriculum.
‘Last term, we held a meeting with head teachers and realized that many teachers had weaknesses in terms of CBC delivery. Very few teachers had been trained on CBC by then,’ Magiri said.
He explained that the initiative was rolled out last term and that all primary school teachers were trained on CBC. He added that they are currently preparing to embark on Competence Based Assessment (CBA) training.
Dr. Marigat explained that they will use assessment formulas being used by teachers from grade one onwards to train teachers on CBA.
‘The training is free. The teachers are grouped into clusters and are trained by volunteers,’ he said and appealed to other regions to deploy similar strategies.
According to both officials, the recent wave of resistance against CBC by some teachers and parents is due to lack of knowledge about the curriculum.
‘In a move to ensure parents are knowledgeable concerning CBC, we have advised school heads to organize meeting with parents and guide them on CBC.” Marigat said.
He asked parents who wish to make inquiries about the new curriculum to feel free to do so.
Kenya Primary School Heads Association National Vice chairman Fuad Ali hailed the initiative to train teachers on CBC as the first of its kind in the country and added that parents should also be trained on CBC.
