We have been counting. The KICD curriculum designs have undergone five changes since PS Belio Kipsang announced on 20th December 2023 that there shall be some rationalisation of the curriculum in line with the recommendations of the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER).
The first changes were published on 11th January 2024, three days after schools opened. We received these changes in incredulity, wondering what took KICD so long and why they waited until schools opened. With the benefit of hindsight, we apologize for our foolish thoughts and expectations, for we did not know what was coming. What we now realize is that KICD was in the coming days, going to help us acquire stronger better character. What we Kenyans fondly call character development.
Let me briefly explain why KICD’s action or inaction matters to us. The CBC App, like all others in the education sector, base our work and interaction with schools on the KICD curriculum designs. Our App presents verbatim, the assessment rubrics in the KICD curriculum designs to schools. This in turn makes it possible for schools to assess learners as per the requirements of the curriculum. This is why every small change KICD makes matters to us and our stakeholders.
Back to the story.
The curriculum designs published on the 11th of January were incomplete and we had lots of questions. We consulted with teachers, school administrators, and other colleagues in the education space, and none of us had answers. Two days later on the 13th of January, KICD published even more changes before suddenly taking down their website with no warning or reason as to why the website was down.
You should have seen us scampering all over, aghast that a national resource containing the most precious of information was offline! We called KICD, reached out via Twitter, called personal friends and even sent out WhatsApp messages. People I know even visited KICD and still the website remained offline. We imagined they’d be grateful and that they would consider our concern a service to the country. But how cute. They remained quiet, the website stared back with an ERR_FAILED message and the chaps concerned had dinner and slept with a clear conscience.
The next 12 days were spent in curious reflection as to what might have happened or what was happening. In the silence from KICD, I managed to acquire the gift of lowered expectations and realised that the gift of a sense of urgency was bad for my liver, so I discarded it. It wasn’t even February, and my character development was remarkable!
The KICD website came back to life once again on 25th January 2024. We expected to find the curriculum designs of the newly rationalised areas, but then we also got the first indications that the changes to the curriculum designs were going to affect other learning areas besides the newly rationalised ones. We exchanged glances at the office and laughed nervously at the thought of having to change even more things than we had anticipated. It was a surprise, and all I can say is that it continued to enhance my character.
We analyzed the changes and started working towards compliance only to be informed again on 9th February 2024 that KICD had ‘added something’. As much as I was grateful for the progress as far as my character was concerned, I couldn’t help but think that too much ambition in character development could kill a man. I took the weekend to let the growth sink in and came back on Monday 12th February to even more changes beyond the ‘something’ we’d seen on Friday!
Anyway, it has now been 30 days since the last change. The KICD website has not gone down, and the leaves of the KICD bush are not rustling. So maybe I can hesitantly proceed to tell you about the six changes we have observed?
[clears throat]
Change #1: Introduction of ‘new’ Learning Areas
The rationalisation exercise saw a reduction in learning areas. This was achieved through merging some learning areas to create ‘new’ ones. All classes apart from PP1 and PP2 were affected by this change and each of these learning areas has corresponding curriculum designs.
Change #2: Changes to the structure of existing learning areas
Existing learning areas were also affected by the rationalisation exercise, perhaps to streamline everything. It is therefore a good idea for each teacher to download the new curriculum designs and check how much it affects their original schemes of work and approach to learning delivery. Language Activities in pre-primary is a good example, as is CRE in lower primary.
Change #3: Reduced number of assessment rubrics
Most of the learning areas have the number of assessment rubrics reduced. Previously (2017 to 2023), assessment rubrics were created for each specific learning outcome but in the recent 2024 changes, some specific learning outcomes do not have corresponding assessment rubrics in the curriculum designs.
Change #4: Generalised assessment rubrics
Another change to the assessment rubrics in the 2024 curriculum designs is the use of generalised assessment rubrics. This means that the curriculum designs define an assessment activity and teachers are expected to apply that assessment activity to the various learning outcomes in each sub-strand. In the previous set of curriculum designs (2017 to 2023), assessment rubrics were well-defined for each sub-strand.
Change #5: One assessment rubric for several learning outcomes
Yet another change to the assessment rubrics in the 2024 curriculum designs is the use of one rubric to assess several distinct learning outcomes at once. This peculiar type of rubric is especially prevalent in Creative Arts in Upper Primary and Creative Arts & Sports in Junior School.
Change #6: Community & Service Learning (CSL) Projects
The 2024 set of curriculum designs have reduced the overall number of expected CSL activities and made very specific recommendations for how these activities should be conducted. The recommendations are:
- Each class shall take part in one CSL activity for an entire year.
- The CSL activity will have input from all learning areas but coordinated from inside one learning area.
- Schools vary the themes of the CSL activity each year.
Let me stop here. I needed to tell you what the CBC App has done to process these changes but then the article is already long enough. All you need to know is that we make lemonade from lemon. So by 8th March 2024, we had processed all the changes and the CBC App is now in full compliance with the requirements of the curriculum.
To find out more about the CBC App, I ask that you call us. There’s a phone number somewhere on this website. Ahsante sana 🙂
