By Kiplat Kaptuya
Kapenguria Member of Parliament Samuel Moroto who spoke recently in his constituency backed the Kenya Kwanza Government to set up a committee to re-look into the CBC curriculum saying the system is not working in pastoral areas.
He said that there was no public participation and it didn’t pass through parliament.
West Pokot Knut Secretary Martin Sembelo pointed out that the system has been met with many challenges especially in arid and semi-arid pastoral areas where teachers posted in the area find it hard to survive, thus the system needs to be re-looked into and closely scrutinized.
The Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) education system is facing a lot of challenges and hard to be implemented in pastoral semi-arid areas.
Since its launch in 2017, teachers, learners and parents say they have been struggling to adapt to the system.
Many areas in the region have high levels of illiteracy, making it hard for parents in the area to help learners.
The nomadic way of life, inadequate infrastructure and teacher’s shortage are some of the challenges facing learners in the region.
For instance in West Pokot County,remote far flung areas like Alale, Ombolion and Chesegon are far and need additional support for them to have a conducive environment for learning.
Parents are mainly pastoralists and many hardly provide requirements under CBC, while they struggle to feed themselves.
According to parents, lack of learning materials, compounded by the challenge of teenage pregnancies and early forced marriages has hindered the system.
A snap survey done in schools in north and central Pokot indicates that learners are forced to attend to over 100 lessons in Grade One to Grade Five.
The Education News has also established that teachers in the region are also forced to use their resources to download and access other learning materials on the internet, and with a lack of network accessibility, it is challenging.
Implementing Physical Education is also a challenge due to the lack of sporting facilities and a play field.
Teachers are also de-motivated as they rely on classrooms for shelter.
Due to insecurity, learning has also been affected because some parents fled the area with their children while other learners dropped out of school.
In many schools, only two or three classrooms are accommodating all the learners.
“Implementing CBC is difficult. We have no resources. We have up to Grade 5 learners but with only two teachers to teach a population of 100 pupils,” said one of the teachers who sought anonymity.
He said that teachers give the learners homework for their parents to assist them, but they fail to do so.
“The classrooms are very congested,” says Mr Evans Kuya, a head teacher of Murwokor Primary school in North Pokot Sub County.
Kuyaa said that the school has no other teacher apart from him.
“I do the administration work plus teaching alone. We depend on Parents, Teachers, Association (PTA) teachers who help in teaching learners at the school,” he said.
According to Mr Kuya, most of the pupils only turn up for school because of the promise of a single meal.
According to Miskwony Primary school head teacher James Matolo, strong winds damaged books, desks and other school equipment hence it has become hard to implement the competency based curriculum (CBC).
“The damage to classrooms had disrupted the pace of covering the syllabus. Learning has been adversely affected after classes were destroyed,” he said.
Jane Cheptoo, a parent from the Ombolion area, the failure by the government to supply food to various schools in the region has seen the number of learners drop drastically.
“When there is no food, there are no learners,” she said.
Ms Cheptoo said schools lack sufficient food to help retain children in school. Children along the border go to school when there is food. Without food they prefer staying at home. This has really affected education standards in this area despite peace prevailing for a year,” said Cheptoo.
“We need more classrooms and teachers. CBC is not effective here. We wonder what will happen when those in Grade Five transition to Grade Six. Some will be forced to go back to studying under the trees,” she said.
