Teachers’ training on new curriculum kicked off yesterday with about 2,000 of them taking part countrywide.
In Nairobi, the training started at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD), where senior education officials were oriented with the new guidelines.
The week-long training is designed in two phases — the first one being a two-day training of senior officials who will supervise its implementation.
In the second phase, teachers who will oversee its implementation will be trained for four days.
According to Nairobi and Kajiado counties’ team leader, Mr Elmad Songe, the training will be holistic and participatory.
“We want to first train senior education officials like the County Directors of Education, heads of education resource centres, head teachers among others so as to acquaint them with basic supervisory skills,” Mr Songe said.
He said that teachers from 10 selected schools in the counties will report on Wednesday, where they will be trained up to Saturday.
According to curriculum implementation guidelines produced by KICD, the process is seen as incorporative in approach, as it even caters for the special needs schools.
Upon completing their training, teachers are expected to start teaching the curriculum on May 29.
The piloting will be done in 470 schools countrywide. Its rollout is expected to start early next year in classes 1 and 2.
This year, KICD was expected to develop learning materials and teaching guides for pre-primary and Class One to Six, also known as Grade 1 to Grade 6.
“In-service re-tooling of current pre-primary and G1 to G6 teachers in the competence based curriculum content, competencies, instruction and assessment will be done this year,” states the report.
After its implementation starting January 2018, KICD will embark on retraining upper primary teachers (Grade 4 to Grade 6) on the new system’s demands and requirements.
In 2018, KICD will concentrate on developing learning materials and teaching guides for G7 to G9 which is Lower Secondary.
“In-service re-tooling of G7 to G9 teachers in competency based curriculum content, competencies, instruction and assessment will be done,” adds the report.
Teachers teaching Grades 7 to 9 will be trained on the new system starting 2019 during which period KICD will also complete the development of learning materials and teaching guides for senior secondary covering grades 10 to 12.
There will also be in-service training for teachers teaching grades 10 to 12 on the new system.
The training will cover the new system’s content, competencies, instruction and assessment.
The proposal to scrap the 8-4-4 system was first contained in a 2012 report by a task force chaired by Prof Douglas Odhiambo.
It instead recommended a 2-6-3-3-3 system aimed at “ensuring learners acquire competencies and skills to meet the human resource aspirations of the Vision 2030 blueprint”.
The current system has been widely criticised for being expansive, heavily loaded with content and too examinations-oriented, which puts undue pressure on learners.
In the early years’ category, students will spend two years in pre-primary and three years in lower primary.
The middle school level of education will comprise three years of upper primary and three years of junior secondary education.