All Regional and County Directors of Education are expected to facilitate public engagement fora by the Presidential taskforce on Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) reforms starting next week.
Ministry of Education Director General, who is also the Secretary to the task force, known as the Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER), Dr Elyas Abdi said in a circular dated October 26 that the team will be in every county for two days from Tuesday.
“The working party will be visiting institutions within the county for the first day and the second day will be spent at the respective venues for public engagement. The public hearings will start at 8am and end at 4pm in all identified venues,” said Abdi.
On Tuesday, teams will be distributed across Kwale, Taita Taveta, Marsabit, Nyandarua, Turkana, Kericho, Busia, Migori, Mandera and Samburu.
On Thursday, they will be in Mombasa, Makueni, Nyeri, Elgeyo Marakwet, Bungoma, Nyamira and Homa Bay while on Friday they will be in Isiolo, Wajir and Laikipia. The working group is expected to have covered all counties by November 11.
Communicate officially
The Regional and County Directors are expected to communicate officially to the Heads of Institutions of the venues where the public hearing will take place.
They are also to prepare a comprehensive education report on their respective counties to be given to the working party.
“The report should contain information on the number of students, non-teaching staff, education challenges and other areas relevant to the terms of reference of the working party. Have a functional public address system at the venue,” Abdi added.
In addition to the stakeholders they were requested to invite by the chairperson of the working group, he said that the directors should also ensure they also invite other key stakeholders from Tvet, university sub-sector, non-teaching staff and student leaders in their respective counties.
They are to invite vice chancellors of universities in the county, if any, local university union chapters like Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU), Kenya University Student Union (KUSU) and Kenya Union of Domestic Hotels Educational Institutions Hospitals and Allied Workers (KUDHEIHA) among others.
Also invited are representatives of non-teaching staff of schools, technical training institutions’ principals, Board of Management Chairmen of schools and secondary school students’ council. Last week, PWPER Chairman Prof Raphael Munavu made a public call for written submissions from Kenyans. Munavu said the submissions should be forwarded to his office by November 18.
“Pursuant to the provisions of Article 10(2)(a) and 232(1)(d) of the Constitution, the Presidential Working Party on Education Reform hereby seeks views from members of the public and other sector stakeholders to inform its terms of reference with respect to reform of the education sector in Kenya,” said Munavu in a public notice issued on October 18.
Private institutions
“The Working Party is open to receiving views from individuals, public and private institutions and all other interested parties. The views should be submitted by way of written memoranda, letters or research papers,” he added.
According to Munavu, the public views should be on basic, tertiary and university education as well as any other issue relevant to the education sector.
On basic education, Munavu said the views should cover areas like appropriate structure to implement the competency-based curriculum and governance of the subsector.
He said that the opinions should also cover conceptualization and implementation of key tenets guiding a competency-based approach including but not limited to value-based education, community service learning, parental empowerment and engagement.
It should also include assessment and examination framework, quality assurance and standards framework, teacher education and training framework for both pre- service and in-service, teacher deployment framework and technology for curriculum delivery, improved learning outcomes and education management.
