Kenya may soon close down thousands of boarding schools and require all learners to be on the day scholar module, this is if a new proposal made by the task force working on the new education curriculum is adopted.
The Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) taskforce formed by Education CS George Magoha has proposed the scrapping of boarding in secondary schools under the new 2-6-3-3-3 education system.
The team advocates that boarding schools be left for a few institutions to admit learners across the country who pursue various pathways in senior secondary.
In addition, the team is also proposing the scrapping of the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination after the sixth year.
Instead, the taskforce wants the exams done after the first of the end of junior secondary.
The assessment will then help to place learners in various senior secondary schools.
From there, another examination will be done at the end of the senior secondary which will help place the students in tertiary institutions.
Under the CBC, learners are expected to spend two years in pre-primary, six in primary, three in junior secondary and another three in senior secondary school.
Prior to the pandemic, the new education system that was rolled out by the Ministry of Education mandated a 17-year-stay in school as opposed to the 8-4-4 system which totaled 16 years.
The major difference between the 8-4-4 system and the new CBC system is that the years learners spend in school are being restructured to 2-6-3-3-3.
All students take 2 years of Pre-primary, then 6 years of Primary, and then 3 years of Junior School. If you pass the Grade 9 exams at 15 at the end of Junior School, you can then go on to take 3 years of Senior School.
University under CBC will be just 3 years instead of 4.
