Education stakeholders in Bomet County have called on the government to allocate more resources to facilitate the successful implementation of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).
Speaking during a Ministerial County-Based Dialogue on Education Quality and Learning Outcomes held at St. Mary’s Girls High School in Bomet Town, participants highlighted the numerous challenges hindering effective learning and delivery of the CBC in the county, calling for an immediate remedy to curb the situation at hand.
Bomet County Education Director, Lenny Ngugi, painted a grim picture of the situation, citing a severe shortage of teachers across all levels of education as the major challenge in implementation of the nascent CBC education system in the country.
Ngugi noted that the government was indeed committed to fully implementing CBC but the challenges were still overwhelming in terms of availability of adequate resources to meet the increased requirements due to more activities and programmes characteristic of CBC as opposed to the 8.4.4 system which is being phased out.
“Currently, Bomet County has a shortage of 1,058 teachers in Early Childhood Development (ECD), 570 in public primary schools, 1,368 in junior secondary, and 1,633 in public secondary schools. This has significantly strained the transition to CBC,” said Ngugi.
He observed that the shortage of teachers was affecting the smooth transition from the old system of education to CBC hence the need to contain the situation.
Ngugi further raised concerns over inadequate infrastructure, particularly for the transition from junior to senior school saying 110 schools in the county lack Grade 9 classrooms, a gap that directly hinders the Ministry of Education’s Transition Guidelines.
Another major challenge highlighted in the meeting was the lack of adequate facilitation for field officers in the department of education to undertake the effective routine monitoring and inspection of schools to instill efficiency.
“For instance, we only have three official vehicles to serve five sub-counties, which is a major setback coupled with poor road networks, such as Chepalungu and Bomet East,” Ngugi observed.
Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Bomet Branch Secretary Desmond Langat echoed Ngugi’s concerns, emphasising the need for more trained teachers and adequate learning materials.
“CBC implementation is at stake due to the shortage of trained teachers. The government must invest in hiring and effectively training more educators because they are the software behind successful curriculum delivery,” Langat said.
Langat also called on the Kenya Institute for Curriculum Development (KICD) and the examiner Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) to review the curriculum content and examination areas for young learners saying some topics are not discernible to the learners.
“Some topics, such as calculus and probability, are too advanced for a Grade 7 child. KICD must reconsider the content to ensure it is age-appropriate and aligned with CBC’s competency goals,” he asserted.
The Ministry of Education has convened the national dialogue across all the counties to engage stakeholders in discussions on the progress, achievements, and opportunities of competency-based education.
However, with challenges such as shortage of teacher, inadequate infrastructure, and unsuitable curriculum content taking center stage, stakeholders emphasized the urgent need for the government to act swiftly to safeguard the quality of education in Bomet County and the country at large.
By Nickson Terer
