By Kevin Odera
Nominee for position of Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu has pledged to make education affordable to all citizens on the backdrop of the numerous complaints by parents on how the the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) has been costly.
He was speaking during a parliamentary vetting session chaired by National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetangula on October 21, 2022.
The nominee regretted that Kenyans were going through a lot of economic hardships and were still coping with the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic making it hard for them to afford education for their children.
Machogu noted that basic education in the country was supposed to be free of charge.
If approved, he said that he will make sure the cost of education is brought down significantly across all levels – from early childhood to university level.
Machogu further said that the one-week induction course on CBC that teachers had gone through was not enough for them to understand the curriculum entirely let alone implement it on the ground.
He pledged to provide an additional period for teachers to be trained comprehensively.
“Once the task force has given me the recommendations, I’ll link up with education stakeholders and look into the matter more precisely,” he said.
President William Ruto had earlier appointed a 49-member task force dubbed the ‘Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms’ on September 30th to review the CBC system among other tasks.
The task force was given six months to collect recommendations from stakeholders and provide a detailed report and is expected to present a progress report to the President after every two months.
