Experts Explain Why CBC System Supersedes 8-4-4 Curriculum
Competency-based curriculum (CBC System) experts have shed light on the grey areas surrounding the system of instruction that has seen a select few remain sceptical about its efficiency eight years since its rollout.
One of the authors of several CBC books, Maurice Aketch and current deputy principal at Makini Junior School, says the adoption of CBC was the best decision Kenya ever made in bettering the country’s education standards.
He claimed that all that is required to alter the viewpoint of its detractors is enough sensitization.
The 38-year-old 8-4-4 curriculum is being phased out by the Ministry of Education, with the 2023 cohort of Std 8 students taking the KCPE examinations as the last to take them. Opponents claimed that the system’s focus on obtaining high marks pushed students to memorize ideas rather than try to absorb new information, which oversupplied the labor market with educated but unskilled workers.
According to Aketch, CBC takes a comprehensive approach to shaping students into more than just book smart people, which promoted cramming under the 8-4-4 system when students were just competing for grades.
Experts Explain Why CBC System Supersedes 8-4-4 Curriculum
“We are evaluating the competencies, skills, and values that a child has acquired through a school process instead of grading them anymore,” he declared.
According to Aketch, a variety of instruments, including research scales, projects, portfolios, community service learning, questionnaires, and surveys, are used to do this.
He said, this guarantees that the knowledge and abilities a student has obtained are precisely recorded and that their contribution to the advancement of society is assessed in light of their knowledge, abilities, and values.
He said that the CBC is a progressive hands-on learning process that enables students to exhibit their natural abilities with very little teacher input, in contrast to the 8-4-4 grading system, where a teacher lectures and lets students demonstrate their level of understanding during one-time written tests.
Experts Explain Why CBC System Supersedes 8-4-4 Curriculum
For example, Aketch explained that under the now-phased-out 8-4-4 method, students would learn about ingredients and recipes in one or two 40-minute classes in the classroom while CBC prepared the meal.
Aketch added that this method of instruction gives students the chance to apply what they have learned in the classroom to real-world circumstances.
The government decided to phase out the 8-4-4 system in part because it prioritized academic performance above holistic development and relied heavily on standardized testing to gauge students’ progress.
“CBC offers the most effective solution to this long-standing flaw in Kenya’s educational system since it equips students with the kind of marketable practical skills”, Okech added.
Aketch refuted the idea that while CBC emphasizes practical abilities, it ignores the fact that students must still be book smart.
According to him, the curriculum’s material has been updated throughout time to better meet the needs of students and prepare them for competition on a worldwide scale.
After three years, we realized the content was too much, so we changed it when we first started.
Exams consist of five papers, not subjects, covering eight learning domains; one paper is a mixture.
For instance, in one specific document, science and technology is referred to as “Integrated Science, Agriculture and Nutrition with a small amount of computer.” Within the umbrella of the creative arts are social studies, music, art, social studies, religious education, and sports.
There will be five, maybe six, papers covering nine study areas in junior secondary school. Teachers in primary schools have received extensive CBC training.
Experts Explain Why CBC System Supersedes 8-4-4 Curriculum
Aketch urged the government to continuously retrain educators to sharpen their CBC teaching techniques and to engage in more public education to allay public misgivings about the medium of instruction.
“All the stakeholders and the public should be sensitised on the nitty gritty of the goodness of CBC because a country will develop because of its education system.”
