Thread by @wmnjoya

KICD's explanation of competency-based education (CBE) has been opaque. In general, they wait for Kenyans to give a generic tale "oh the graduates are not competent at work" then they say "here's the solution." But ask them how it works, they wont say #CurriculumReformsKE

CBE was imported by British & American consultants paid by huge donors and the imperial culture agendas. Competency Works was mentioned by one of the #CurriculumReformsKE defenders when I asked about whether there's CBE in primary school, but KICD won't say if they were involved

KICD has refused to answer my questions about how Kenyans were involved in #CurriculumReformsKE. The framework mentions British Council and UNESCO. Arigatou, a Japanese Foundation, provided the ethics curriculum as KICD snubbed the religious sector ethicseducationforchildren.org/en/news/904-et…

So we are left to our devices to find out what CBE means. American teachers in public schools have been flagging some of the philanthropists and foundations behind the push to have CBE in public education. The long term goal is to replace teachers with tech #CurriculumReformsKE

Peter Green has highlighted some of the problems with CBE. 1. CBE sounds new but it's nothing we haven't seen before. Genuine teachers have always wanted to know their kids have internalized what has been taught. @palan57 #CurriculumReformsKE

2. CBE are selling an ideal (well resourced education), but with the intent to fund a cheaper version. KICD has also avoided questions whether the funding for #CurriculumReformsKE is possibly enough when it wasn't enough for 8-4-4 that had the same goal. @palan57

2 (cont) and remember that the laptop project introduced in Jubilee's first term is just around the corner. Digital content publishers were furiously advertising after KCPE. When 2-6-3-3 fails, GoK will pull out laptops and say stop complaining #CurriculumReformsKE

3. CBE reduces learning to a collection of tasks. Green gives example of basketball: "You may pass the dribbling test, the passing test, the shooting test, the jumping test, and the blocking test, but does that mean you have achieved mastery of basketball?" #CurriculumReformsKE

3. (continued) CBE also means that your competency is based on that of the teacher who is testing you, so you are not allowed to know something different or more than the tester (teacher)'s competence. So a child must think within the box #CurriculumReformsKE

3. (continued) CBE therefore means that a child ends up with different skills but no ability to perform a task in context. As Green puts it, you'll know shooting, jumping, blocking and dribbling, but try to play with LeBron James, that's another story #CurriculumReformsKE

4. CBE doesn't end obsession with exams. Once someone has passed the "competency," test they'll think they can perform any task in the real world. Recall that KICD's senior deputy director said she could not guarantee that exam obsession will end with #CurriculumReformsKE

5. CBE replaces one summative exam (like KCSE) with multiple smaller tests (CATs). So testing won't end with #CurriculumReformsKE. Worse, the same teachers called cheats in KCSE will be expected to administer individual and credible CATs to be used when a kid finishes school 🤔

6. CBE is promising to teach "competencies" that are naturally possessed by human beings. As I've said before, kids are naturally imaginative. So #CurriculumReformsKE can't teach or test if a kid is imaginative, unless they're going to impose someone else's imagination on the kid

All this is probably too much detail for an ordinary parent. The point is that the new teaching approach in 2-6-3-3, which KICD is calling CBE, is disempowering for both teachers and learners. And with pressure from State House and Matiangi, it will be worse #CurriculumReformsKE

The other point to note is that promoters of CBE are corporates, especially in the tech world. Their interest is to disempower teachers so much and replace them laptops in in the name of "individualized" learning. And who benefits? Tech and software companies #CurriculumReformsKE

Pepi Leistyna puts it this way. Note that he talks of disguising profit in the language of concern for children #CurriculumReformsKE

G. Egodawatte, examining CBE curriculum in Singapore, the country we cheat ourselves we're following, said that CBE is more rhetoric than practical, does not require higher skills from the teacher that would help students apply knowledge to real life context #CurriculumReformsKE

KICD is just selling us rhetoric rather than actual change. They throw all these buzzwords and appeal to the things they know disturb Kenyans, but their promises lack substance when you scratch beneath the surface.

And to all this, they'll say I'm negative. #CurriculumReformsKE