The current primary teacher education programme (P1) is set to be dropped and replaced with a diploma course starting in the new year in radical measures to fast track the implementation of the new curriculum.
According to the Curriculum Policy document signed off by Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed on Friday, the replacement of the P1 teachers is part of a government initiative to produce high quality staff capable of implementing the new system, known in education circles as the Competence Based Curriculum (CBS).
The TSC will be in charge of mounting a robust teacher training programme, an area that has been cited as weak and which prompted an earlier feeling that the CBC was not yet ripe for implementation.
About Sh1 billion has already been spent on teacher training, with the government expressing confidence that the 170,000 teachers so far trained can navigate the 2019 CBC roll-out as other staff undergo training for the necessary skills set.
TSC secretary Nancy Macharia will also institute an effective teacher deployment, management and development programme to meet the expectations of the reform in regular, special needs schools and tertiary institutions.
From Thursday when the new term begins, learners from PP1, PP2 and Grades 1-3 will be put on the less examination-oriented CBC in all public and private primary schools.
The latest development comes as four education agencies bear sustained government pressure to deliver the new curriculum
The four, TSC, Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec), Kenya Institute for Curriculum Development (KICD) and the Ministry of Education’s Quality Assurance and Standards department, have been named as key to making or breaking the new curriculum.
The CBC, set to replace the much-criticised 33-year-old 8-4-4, is turning out to be one of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s pet projects.
Ms Mohamed was yesterday said to be mulling over a strategy to successfully roll out the new school system amid concerns that key policy and legal instruments to support the CBC are not in place.
On Thursday, she sent out a sessional paper to anchor the curriculum to Parliament and thereafter silently dispatched the Curriculum Policy document to the KICD late on Friday.
However, the ministry will, according to the policy, work closely with National Education Boards and County Education Boards to influence curriculum reform and implementation at national and county levels respectively to steer the process.