President Uhuru Kenyatta has moved to provide a powerful team of technocrats to assist Education CS George Magoha to oversee the implementation of the new Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).
The Head of State announced a reshuffle in government on Wednesday, 17 February which saw Julius Jwan appointed as Principal Secretary of the State Department of Early Learning and Basic Education.
His role is fundamental in rolling out the new 2-6-3-3-3 education system, having played a critical role in the design and formulation of the new syllabus.
Other than developing the new curriculum, Jwan also managed to transmute digital content into HTML5. The markup language presents content on the World Wide Web and can play on any platform. This makes it easy for the rollout of the Digital Literacy Programme in primary schools.
Uhuru also assigned Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) chairperson, Dr Sarah Ruto, to seat as the Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS) at the Ministry of Education.
She replaced Zack Kinuthia, who was also appointed CAS under the Ministry of Sports, Culture and Heritage.
Dr. Ruto played a critical role in assisting the Ministry of Health to come up with practical reforms in the CBC rollout.
Incidentally, she had also been Dr. Jwan's boss while he was CEO at KICD after which he was appointed to become PS in-charge of vocational training.
“She has deep insights into the CBC and ensured that the institute developed appropriate curricula that demonstrated fidelity to the competencies anticipated in CBC,” said Charles Ongondo, KICD CEO.
The newly commissioned officials were essential in rolling out the current content-based curriculum to the CBC. Their background on the matter is likely to come in handy as Magoha faces a myriad of challenges in the implementation of CBC.
The changes rolled out the implementation of the CBC from Pre-Primary One (PPI) to present Grade 4 with Grade 5 taking effect before the end of the year.
President Uhuru said the new administration would roll out CBC to give Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects the push to drive Kenya into a technology-powered economy.
The education system will see learners spend two years in pre-primary education, six years in primary school, three years in junior secondary school, and the last three in senior secondary school.
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