Ghosts of evading Competency-Based Education (CBE) have started haunting high schools, especially for learners currently in Form 2.
The Ministry of Education swiftly issued circulars to all Regional, County, and Sub-County Directors, directing that no new learners be registered without the Ministry’s explicit approval.
As part of Kenya’s Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) transition policy, the government directed that all Grade 6 learners be enrolled in Junior Secondary School (JSS) hosted within their current primary schools. This was aimed at ensuring a smooth transition from primary to lower secondary education (Grades 7–9) under the new system.
This policy was officially communicated by the Ministry of Education in 2023 and implemented nationally.
In counties like Garissa, Wajir, and Mandera, head teachers and parents are bypassing junior secondary (CBC) by registering students directly for the KCPE exams under the old 8-4-4 system.
A former Garissa County Commissioner vehemently warned parents, teachers, and learners against abandoning the CBE system for the 8-4-4 system, thereby joining the last cohort in Grade 8 before completing the requisite demands of the model.
“We are warning you, you can’t register a learner from Grade 6 to 8, we have a list of some notorious schools and have forwarded their names to the investigative agencies for further action, ” he said.
Some of these learners were hurriedly transferred from public to private schools.
High school teachers interviewed on condition of anonymity confess that some of these learners are highly likely to be perfect products of the evasion.
Consequently, they have been forced to bear the brunt of imparting knowledge to learners who haven’t evidently exhibited maturity and readiness to grasp the Grade 8 content.
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The ghosts of incompetence are proliferating in both private and public schools, steadily disrupting learning.
The high school teachers have therefore found themselves at a crossroads, unsure of how to navigate these challenging issues.
CBC, now CBE, was introduced as a new syllabus during the last stretch of Uhuru Kenyatta’s presidency, and from the start, the new system never really received genuine public approval.
Its implementation faced significant hurdles, mainly due to its hurried implementation. Then Education CS, the late Prof George Magoha, showed great passion in trying to sell it to the public, but a significant chunk of the public hardly bought the idea.
Under this mountain of public mistrust, some parents were said to have transferred their children, who were then in Grades 6 to 7, to Grade 8 to sit for the last KCPE before the introduction of the new curriculum.
So, when the country went to the polls for the 2013 elections, CBE was a major election topic, with the public urging serious candidates to promise the withdrawal of the syllabus. Current President William Ruto had pledged to remove i,t and this gave him a huge public approval.
But on ascension to power, Ruto quickly formed a task force to advise on the fate of the controversial curriculum. Its report recommended retaining the syllabus with some amendments. This created a hue and cry from the public, but the train had hit the rails, and there was nothing else to do.
By Hillary Muhalya
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