The Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) on Thursday issued a blunt pastoral assessment of President William Ruto’s administration, praising economic progress and teacher recruitment while condemning deepening corruption, a broken curriculum rollout, and chronic underfunding of schools.
KCCB, in its wide-ranging statement, said the government deserved credit for stabilising parts of the economy and hiring more teachers, reforms the clerics acknowledged as critical to easing pressure in public schools.
They also welcomed the ongoing construction of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges across the country, urging young people to enroll and equip themselves with practical skills.
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But the praise ended there.
The prelates delivered a stinging rebuke of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC), describing its implementation as being in “an astounding state of confusion.”
They accused policymakers of making curriculum decisions driven more by “political expediency than the good of learners,” leaving schools, especially in rural areas, struggling with severe teacher shortages.
The bishops further raised alarm over the financial crisis in schools, saying headteachers are “struggling to run schools without funds, yet unable to send children home for unpaid fees.”
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They warned that the government is “gambling with our children’s lives” by failing to ensure consistent and equitable school funding.
Their scorecard, delivered during the pastoral review, amounted to only a handful of positives against a raft of concerns for the Kenya Kwanza administration, an unmistakable call for urgent reforms in the education sector and stronger moral leadership from the state.
By Mercy Kokwon
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