The curriculum developer’s budget has been slashed by Sh100 million. The reduction is expected to hurt rollout of the new curriculum set to start in January.
Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development director Julius Jwan said on Friday the institute is facing constraints in implementing the curriculum. The curriculum is on a pilot phase being conducted across the country.
The pilot covers two years of pre-primary and three years of lower primary education. Education stakeholders – teachers, parents and school management – are in a blame-game on the progress of its implementation, four weeks to the end of third term. “We do not even have enough resources to implement the curriculum we are working on,” Jwan told the Star on the phone. He said the KICD had requested Sh500 million from the Exchequer for the rollout of grades 1 to 4. The institute had estimated the implementation to cost Sh3 billion.
The implementation further suffers lack of materials and infrastructure, shortage of teachers and shallow training. The piloting of the 2-6-3-3-3 model started nationwide in January, the intention is to phase out the 8-4-4 system in 10 years.
An evaluation by the curriculum developer last month showed private schools are excelling in the pilot as they have adequate learning materials and teachers are better trained than their public school counterparts.
