Education stakeholders who spoke to Education News suggested that the commission’s focus is mainly on training, referred to as “retooling,” but places little emphasis on monitoring.
Early this year, Education News surveyed the progress of CBE implementation in Kenyan primary school classrooms.
At the subcounty level, the Ministry of Education, which develops the curriculum through the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD), is reported to have only one officer assigned to each subcounty, whose responsibilities include monitoring the implementation of the curriculum. The other available officers at the zonal level are employees of TSC, whose primary responsibilities centre on teacher management.
The same zonal officers are reportedly unable to facilitate movement around schools within their zones. It is interesting to learn that zonal officers must rely on the goodwill of school administrators to monitor their schools effectively.
“We primarily rely on phone calls to the head teachers and principals of our schools when monitoring activities because some schools are far away and there is no way to travel out, “replied one of the CSOs from Samburu County.
What many stakeholders have failed to comprehend is the yearly increment of funds to TSC by the treasury, which doesn’t include monitoring of curriculum implementation in schools.
They implored the commission to salvage CBE implementation by ensuring that the monitoring aspect receives the attention it deserves.
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