Education CS George Magoha has reiterated his commitment to ensuring the new curriculum is rolled out, even as Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) officials urged teachers to skip the Competency-Based Curriculum training launched this week. Speaking at Lang’ata during the official launch of the CBC Training programme, CS Magoha said he is always focused on what he wants to achieve, “So, let us stop wasting time and concentrate on the goal. Let us keep our eyes on the goal and the goal is CBC.”
The new curriculum implementation has come under attack by KNUT, led by Wilson Sossion, who have faulted among other things the preparedness to implement it, and ironically, the poor training of teachers. Magoha said that progress must be seen by the end of this year, and assured that the curriculum is practised globally in countries like Malaysia, India, Canada, South Africa and China, contrary to suggestions that it has failed to pick up on a larger scale in other nations.
He acknowledged the fact that the new curriculum will focus less on content and more on the acquisition of competencies to help people do things themselves. He said there is a current youth bulge in unemployment and people need to be trained not to look for jobs but to create jobs, “This CBC will train people who can create jobs for themselves and employ other people,” he said, adding that it doesn’t matter which school one goes to. According to TSC CEO Nancy Macharia, teachers have turned out in large numbers so far for the training in 1,191 zones, and that the preparedness will be a continuous process.
