Starting January 2024 the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) will reduce the number of learning areas for learners in the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC).
President William Ruto on Tuesday August 1, 2023 okayed the recommendations of the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER) and ordered immediate implementation.
In the report learners under the new curriculum will have reduced subjects starting term one of next year. The learning areas will reduce from 9 to 7 for Grades One to Three.
Learning areas will also reduce from 12 to 8 for Grades Four to Six and from 14 to 9 for Grades Seven to Nine.
The number of learning areas will be 5 in pre-primary and 7 in Junior and Senior School (Grades Seven to Twelve).
So far KICD has only published the new number of lessons for Junior School (Grades Seven, Eight and Nine). KICD will release the new learning areas for other Grades in due course.
Below are the new compulsory and optional subjects in junor school. Two subjects i.e Health Education and Life Skill were dropped.
Also previously learners used to pick two optional subjects but now only one optional subject is to be taken.
COMPULSORY SUBJECTS
1) English
2) Kiswahili or Kenya Sign Language (KSL)
3) Mathematics
4) Integrated Science
5) Social Studies
6) Business Studies
7) Agriculture
8) Pre-Technical and Pre-Career Studies
9) Religious Studies Education
i) Christian Religious Education (CRE)
ii) Islamic Religious Education (IRE)
iii) Hindu Religious Education (HRE)
OPTIONAL SUBJECTS
10 In optional subjects a student shall take one subject
i) Visual Arts
ii) Performing Arts
iii) Home Science
iv) Computer Science
v) Other Languages (Indigenous Language, French, Arabic, German, Sign Language)
NOTE
Physical Education (P.E.) shall be offered to all learners as a compulsory to support the development of the Psychomotor Domain.