By Kage Njoroge
Education stakeholders from Murang’a county have stated that the education sector needs radical reforms to create an enabling process for effective delivery of the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) in contemporary times.
During a session held at Murang’a Teachers Training College, Murang’a South KNUT branch Executive Secretary John Njata told the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms led by University of Nairobi Vice Chancellor Prof Stephen Kiama that the curriculum should be crafted to impart knowledge and skills to empower today’s children to enable them cope with the fast changing technologies and issues in the world.
“The entire education level chain needs changes to enable the realization of the country’s growth agenda,” he said.
Njata pointed that CBC syllabus is acceptable and needs to be strengthened to improve the quality of teaching and learning.
He added that teachers should be empowered with skills, training and teaching resources to equip them to easily transfer knowledge to the children.
He argued that the government needs to develop a deliberate programme to continuously train teachers on CBC for regular empowerment in their career growth.
The stakeholders also proposed that the controversial Junior Secondary School (JSS) should be domiciled in primary schools.
“The children are too young to be sent to secondary schools away from parental care,” they said.
Murang’a Senator Joseph Nyutu observed that the proposed JSS should be renamed upper or senior primary and that the learners should remain in primary schools.
“This will cut down on the cost of building new classrooms,” he said.
KNUT official Kamau Githaiga disclosed that most public primary schools in the region have empty classrooms due to the decreasing number of pupils.
He said that Central Kenya region is recording low birth rates in recent times and the established primary schools have underutilized infrastructures which could accommodate JSS.
