Officials from Lesotho’s Ministry of Education and Training are in the country on an eight day benchmarking exercise of the newly introduced Competency Based Curriculum (CBC).
Speaking on Monday a t Jogoo House Nairobi, Head of Lesotho Delegation, Bertha. M. Seutloali said that this exercise would help them not only learn from Kenya as a country on the implementation of the new Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) but also improve their education system.
“Like Kenya we are also having a paradigm shift in education. We started these reforms in education in 2012.We were able to get a loan from the World Bank in 2016 which will enable us improve our institutions,” Seutloali said.
She added that absenteeism, high levels of dropout and repetition in their schools and also poor performance in all levels prompted them to seek to improve the education system.
“We identified 312 primary schools which we wish to improve. We are also willing to share our experiences with you so that you can learn from us too,” she added.
The Kenya Primary Education Development (PRIEDE) Project Coordinator, Martha Ekirapa commended the country for the competency based Learning and Policy sheet in terms of provision of textbooks.
“In terms of provision of textbooks to the learners, all our children now have textbooks in the ratio of 1:1 where each student has a textbook for himself/herself and our institution. PRIEDE has been given the responsibility of facilitating the distribution across the country,”Ekirapa said.
She stated that major presentations will be held at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) where both teams will engage positively.
“Since most of you want to see the impact the school improvement programme has had in the country, we shall take you to a field trip tomorrow. The trip will involve visiting two counties which are close to Nairobi; that is Kirinyaga and Embu so that you are able to see the impact of community involvement in school management,” she said.
According to Ekirapa, Lesotho is the fourth country benchmarking in the country after Malawi, Zambia and Somalia.The benchmarking will last till June 9.
By Melodious Kemunto/Philly Opere
