Nominated Member of Parliament and former Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Secretary General, Wilson Sossion, has condemned the Competency-Based Curriculum as a fraudulent system that threatens to reverse the education gains by the country.
In his heightening calls for the country to reverse to the 8-4-4 system, Sossion - while appearing on Citizen TV on Wednesday, August 25, faulted the CBC curriculum saying it was being implemented in a very unprofessional manner.
Sossion argued the 2-6-3-3 system of education, which was unveiled in 2017 to replace the 8-4-4 one, did not follow all the required procedures before being adopted.
"CBC is a fraudulent curriculum that is being forced on the nation of Kenya and it was rolled out without a professional perspective," he argued.
According to the outspoken lawmaker, the new CBC system of education is more of an extortionist scheme that has dented parents' pockets by forcing them to buy unnecessary learning materials.
He further claimed that teachers are finding it difficult to adapt the curriculum since they have not received enough training.
"The government must accept that they have failed the education system, this is because on the ground teachers are frustrated and stressed, parents are expected to buy a lot of learning materials," Sossion stated.
"The government needs to undertake a review, to change what needs to be changed and improve what needs to be improved. There was no public participation when the programme was at the policy formulation level."
Justifying his sentiments, Sossion stated the country threw away the best system that had gone through all the required processes to adopt a foreign system that was hastily rolled out.
"Public participation was not well done when it comes to CBC. On the other hand, 8-4-4 was discussed and tabled in Parliament for adoption, but CBC has never been discussed."
However, according to Dr. Julius Ouma Jwan, the Principal Secretary for the State Department of Early Learning, experts gave a greenlight for the implementation of the current curriculum thus calls for reversing the system are unfounded.
"Education experts looked at our education system and they said we are on the right trajectory. Kenya is currently one of the countries that is pumping a lot of money in terms of budget allocation in education," Dr. Jwan told Citizen TV.
The introduction of 2-6-3-3 received a lot of attention and provided an opportunity for the country to reflect on the end of an Era in Kenya's Education where ranking and cut throat completion were at the center of the sector.
