The classroom teacher deserves a stronger voice in curriculum and assessment design

As Kenya continues implementing Competency-Based Education (CBE), one thing is becoming increasingly clear: the success of the curriculum will depend greatly on the teacher standing in front of the learner.

Curriculum development and assessment are often discussed in policy meetings, institutional reports and professional forums. Yet in the classroom, teachers are the ones who translate curriculum designs into actual learning experiences. They explain concepts, guide activities, assess progress and identify the difficulties learners encounter along the way. This places teachers in a unique position to contribute to decisions about what is taught, how it is taught and how learning is assessed. It is time their voices were given even greater consideration in curriculum development and the preparation of assessment tasks.

The concerns some teachers have raised about the level and suitability of certain School-Based Assessment (SBA) tasks deserve careful attention. These concerns should not automatically be interpreted as resistance to educational reform. Instead, they should prompt an honest examination of whether the tasks match the intended learning outcomes, the learners' developmental levels and the opportunities they have had to acquire the expected competencies. The objective should never be to lower educational standards, but to ensure that standards are meaningful, achievable through appropriate learning experiences and measured fairly. A curriculum can be well designed on paper, but its real test is what happens in the classroom.

The Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) has an established process for curriculum development, including needs assessment, design, piloting, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and practising teachers are recognised among the professionals who participate in curriculum development panels. This is an important starting point. However, the question is whether teachers' participation is sufficiently broad and continuous, and whether their classroom experiences consistently influence decisions about curriculum content and assessment.

Curriculum development should not end when a curriculum design is published. Implementation brings new lessons: teachers discover which concepts learners find difficult, which activities require more time and where available resources may not adequately support the expected learning outcomes. Such experiences should inform regular curriculum review. KICD should strengthen the channels through which teachers can share these experiences, with representation from different regions, school categories and learning environments so that curriculum decisions reflect the diversity of Kenyan classrooms.

Extending the same principle to assessment

The same argument applies to assessment. The Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) has a central role in ensuring that assessment tasks are valid, reliable and aligned with the competencies learners are expected to develop. Its April 2026 call for applications for training in test-item writing for competency-based assessment offers an opportunity to strengthen teachers' participation in this important work. Training teachers to develop quality test items is a welcome step, but it should lead to meaningful opportunities for them to contribute to the actual development, review and piloting of assessment tasks.

Teachers understand the language learners encounter, the misconceptions they develop and the challenges they face when applying what they have learnt. This classroom knowledge can help assessment specialists determine whether a question measures the intended competency or introduces difficulties unrelated to the learning being assessed. A good assessment item should challenge learners appropriately without confusing them through unclear wording or demands inconsistent with the intended learning outcomes; its quality should be judged by what it validly measures, not simply by how difficult it appears.

KNEC should therefore continue building a pool of trained teacher-item writers and create effective channels for their participation in assessment development and quality assurance, while giving teachers clear guidance on assessment criteria, scoring rubrics and the evidence learners are expected to provide.

Why School-Based Assessment needs this partnership

School-Based Assessment makes this partnership particularly important. SBA is intended to capture learners' progress as they develop competencies, rather than merely produce scores. For it to serve this purpose, learners must understand the tasks, teachers must be adequately prepared, and assessment requirements must be manageable within the realities of classroom instruction.

Where teachers identify concerns about the difficulty, wording, workload or suitability of an assessment task, there should be a clear process for submitting feedback and receiving a professional response. KICD and KNEC should examine such concerns against curriculum requirements and evidence from implementation before deciding whether revisions or additional guidance are necessary. Listening to teachers does not mean accepting every complaint without scrutiny; it means taking classroom evidence seriously and using it to improve the system.

KICD and KNEC have different but complementary responsibilities: KICD develops and reviews curriculum designs and support materials, while KNEC is responsible for national assessment and examination functions. Their collaboration, informed by practising teachers, can help ensure that curriculum expectations and assessment demands remain properly aligned. The Teachers Service Commission, teacher educators, school leaders and curriculum support officers also have a role in strengthening this partnership, helping establish a feedback system that identifies implementation challenges early and turns them into opportunities for improvement.

Ultimately, CBE should not be judged simply by the number of curriculum documents produced or assessment tasks administered, but by learners' ability to apply knowledge, demonstrate competencies and progress confidently in their education. Kenya has invested considerable effort in transforming its education system, and that investment must be supported by open professional dialogue and a willingness to learn from those closest to the learner. The classroom teacher is not merely an implementer of decisions made elsewhere; the teacher is a professional whose experience can help determine whether those decisions work in practice. If we want CBE to succeed, we must listen to the people bringing it to life every day — a stronger teacher voice in curriculum development and assessment design is not a favour to the teaching profession, but an investment in better learning for Kenyan children.