The Presidential Working Party on Education Chairperson Raphael Munavu has broken his silence on complaints from parents over the costly nature of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).
In an interview on Sunday Live on October 30, Prof Munavu admitted that the implementation of the curriculum was too expensive for parents to shoulder.
He, however, asked the parents to offer their solutions to help the state roll out the new curriculum in an affordable way.
"Parents play a major role in raising children. The key tenets of CBC of community engagement and parent engagement in teaching cannot be conveyed just by teachers. Parents have a role but we must clearly define the role. It should not be too costly for the parents.
"Sometimes there are things that we must re-engineer. If we have a way of engaging the parents... please come on board and tell us what your view is," stated Munavu.
The professor further noted that the task force, which was formed by President William to review the CBC rollout, had embarked on a nationwide tour to collect views from all Kenyans before providing a way forward.
"We are going to visit all the counties because we must listen and get views on what Kenyans feel and say not about CBC only but also about TVET and university education," he added.
The drive is slated to end on November 12 and all feedback from stakeholders collected by November 18. Upon compilation, the final report will be forwarded to the Head of State at the beginning of December.
Parents had earlier lamented that teachers took advantage of CBC rollout to make ridiculous demands from them every school term.
In some cases, students were advised to carry live chicken while others are asked to dress as chefs or police officers extending a financial burden to their parents.
During the interview, Munavu also addressed the thorny issue of University funding noting that the matter would be addressed by the upcoming report.
So far, a number of universities led by the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) owe suppliers debts running into billions of shillings.
"Who is responsible to ensure that the University is fully funded? It is all Kenyans because we are training future workers. People who are going to drive this country. It is appropriate for us to revisit how the universities should be funded.
"What should universities do to mobilise resources? How is it that we should not have some disciplines that all of us must support? Are there some disciplines that the University feels that they need to be funded no matter what? Is it Agriculture or Doctors? So that even if the capitation is high, we decided to implement differentiated unit cost... The allocation per student should depend on the discipline that they are taking," he argued.
JKUAT has a debt of Ksh12 billion followed by the University of Nairobi, which has Ksh11.2 billion.
