Report indicts school syllabus over deficiencies in core values

Business

By SAM OTIENO

Experts have raised concerns over the secondary school curriculum, saying it could be defective.

A draft report by the Ministry of Education passed a harsh verdict on the curriculum, arguing it has not fully achieved the objectives of secondary education.

It is possible students are only taught to pass examination at the expense of their holistic educational development.

The curriculum, in its current form, has also failed to adequately capture learner-related peculiarities such as aptitude, interests and regional diversities.

Kenya Institute of Education director Lydia Nzomo (left) and Acting Education PS Magdalene Wambua attended the launch of the curriculum evaluation report at KIE, Nairobi, yesterday. [PHOTO: MAXWEL AGWANDA/STANDARD]

It emerged there are two sets of syllabus sent to schools; one from the Kenya Institute of Education (KIE) and the other from the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC).

According to the report, Summative Evaluation of the Secondary School Education Curriculum, the use of KIE and KNEC syllabuses negatively affect curriculum implementation. The study reveals the parallel syllabus developed by KNEC appears to be more attractive to teachers than that of KIE.

Teachers, it says, defend the use of the KNEC syllabus saying it helps them identify weak learners for remedial teaching. They also use it to assess achievement of learning objectives and their abilities.

The result is that students graduate with lack of practical skills and desired attitudes and values due to over concentration on theoretical skills.

At stake is also the realisation of Vision 2030. The study concluded the current secondary curriculum does not adequately equip learners with competencies to meet Kenya’s aspirations. "There is need to have only one syllabus in schools. KNEC should provide only examination regulations and guidelines," the report reads in part.

But KNEC secretary and CEO Paul Wasanga, who spoke to The Standard after the report’s launch, defended the council.

"KNEC is supposed to send the syllabus to schools because we have to tell schools what will be examined as they cannot just be ambushed," said Wasanga. He says the council cannot do without examinations and it is up to teachers to ensure whatever is in the KIE curriculum is taught to students. However, it has been a common practice that teachers only concentrate on aspects that are to be examined and skip the core values.

Wasanga, at the same time, conceded there were aspects taught in schools but not tested, saying they go a long way in preparing learners on how to fit in the outside world.

Allocated time

He says the buck stops with the teachers, who fail to utilise the allocated time to implement the entire curriculum.

KIE Director Lydia Nzomo said the exams council should not issue a syllabus but send to schools examination regulations.

"Learning is not about passing examinations and if they take the syllabus to schools, teachers tend to concentrate on it rather than the entire curriculum," said Nzomo.

According to the new report, learners are taken through undue emphasis on examinations, which undermine effective assessment.

"Most schools use traditional written tests approaches, whereas observations and projects are rarely used," reads the report. Moreover, these tests are cognitively skewed and ignore other domains of learning.

The study found out schools burden learners with frequent continuous assessments due to the high stakes placed on summative examination.

Other consequences of this situation includes private tutoring, extra tuition, remedial teaching and use of commercially developed examination papers which at times do not conform to the curriculum.

The study revealed that acquisition of practical skills has been further undermined by inadequate facilities.

"The most commonly used resource was found to be the textbook. Some of the recommended books have contradictory information and factual errors," it says.

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