The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) has once again rejected the new curriculum in what is turning out to be a pull and push tussle with the Ministry of Education. Speaking to the press, KNUT Secretary General Wilson Sossion faulted the competence based curriculum, saying it will destroy children in Kenya and they won’t allow that to happen. On Wednesday, Education CS Prof. George Magoha launched the National Curriculum Policy Launch, where he affirmed that the roll out won’t be stopped, and passed a stern message to any who may try to oppose it.
However, Sossion has continued the tussle, saying rolling out the curriculum then launching the policy is like putting a cart before the horse, followed by seeking statutory instruments from parliament and a national conference. “We shall die with the children. We can’t allow business entities and dishonest Kenyans to engage in a process that will destroy Kenyans,” he said.
He said teachers won’t participate in an illegal and unconstitutional process, “There is no approved statutory instruments to anchor the exercise. There has been no communication gazetted to manage the process and the exercise is in total contravention of the Public Participation Act 2018,” he said. Sossion added that the content in the new curriculum was borrowed form a report which was rejected in 2012.
He further faulted the Ministry for bench marking in countries where the CBC failed including South Africa, Tanzania, Malaysia among others, “In South Africa, teachers taught it for six months and because it failed they boycotted it and reverted to outcome based curriculum.” The KNUT boss criticized the Education CS, labeling him as arrogant. “The Ministry of Education has been unfortunate with a chain of arrogant Ministers,” he said, adding that Ministers in the past including George Saitoti never abused teachers, “We are not going to walk with a Minister who does not respect us, let the President know,” he said.