In Kenya, primary education forms the initial stage of the formal education system. Typically, children begin at six years old and continue for eight years. The core objective is to equip children for active participation in the social, political, and economic aspects of society.
Before Kenya gained independence, primary education was mainly managed by local communities or non-governmental organizations like church groups. Today, most primary schools are public and rely on government funding for operational costs, including teachers' salaries. However, parents often cover school supplies, equipment, construction, and maintenance through Parent Teacher Associations.
Over the past three decades, primary education has seen significant growth in the number of schools and student enrollment. At independence, there were 6,056 primary schools with 891,600 children. Alongside this expansion, there has been a notable increase in girls' participation in education. Initially, girls made up only about a third of primary school enrollment, but by 1990, this proportion had risen to nearly 50 percent.
The Kenyan government recognizes universal primary education as crucial for economic and social development. Providing primary education to women, in particular, is seen as a way to accelerate societal progress.
The government has increased its budgetary allocation to education and introduced a Constituency Bursary Fund to facilitate education at the local level.
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Pupils in a Kenyan primary school.
The 8-4-4 System
Since 1985, public education in Kenya has followed the 8-4-4 system, which includes eight years of primary education, four years of secondary school, and four years of college or university.
The 8-4-4 system replaced the 7-4-2-3 curriculum. The 7-4-2-3 system consisted of seven years of primary school, four years of lower secondary school, two years of upper secondary school, and three years of higher education. The system's main purpose was to improve the development of self-expression, self-discipline and independence.
With the change in the education system, came the change in the primary national test from CPE(Certificate of Education) to KCPE(Kenya Certificate of Primary Education) and the secondary national test from KCE(Kenya Certificate of Education) to KCSE(Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education).
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The 8-4-4 curriculum offers Science, Social Studies, Kiswahili, English, Math, Religious education, Creative arts, Physical Education (PE), and life skills studies at the Primary level.
Kenyan independence triggered a lot of changes as time went by. The country experienced a significant growth in school enrollments as well as population growth. This pushed the government to alter their educational system by adjusting the length of the education cycles and the curriculum content.
The 8-4-4 system allowed for an additional year in primary school to aide in enhancing their decision-making skills needed to make important lifestyle choices. The 8-4-4 system made primary school available and free in order to keep up with the demand and also give quality education that essentially was to help the economy.
In January 2003 President Mwai Kibaki re-introduced free education which even allowed the oldest person to enroll in primary school to attend his primary schooling.
Statistics on education show that regional disparities still exist despite the excellent national record. The semi-arid areas, the parastatic areas and areas where the Muslim religion is predominant had lagged behind other areas in education.
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The New Competency Based Curriculum (CBC)
Kenya introduced the new Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) in 2017 to replace the 8-4-4 system. The new curriculum was implemented in the primary level from classes 1-5. With its gradual introduction, the government's vision is to organize the curriculum as follows: Basic Education will be divided into three levels: Early education, middle school education and senior school education.
Improvements to the curriculum are also entrenched in the new Constitution of Kenya 2010. To achieve Kenya’s Vision 2030, Kenya is transforming the education system by developing three key components:
- Competencies
- Character
- Creativity
These values go beyond traditional subject-based learning and focus on holistic development. They include critical thinking & problem-solving, Imagination & creativity, communication & collaboration, Citizenship, digital literacy, Self-efficiency, and lifelong learning.
The competency-based curriculum follows a 2-6-6-3 model:It replaces the previous 8-4-4 model which had eight years of primary school, four years of secondary and finally four years at university (if applicable). CBC has a learner-centric curriculum designed to be experiential, as opposed to the previous teacher-led ‘learning by rote’ and examination approach. It focuses on the children being guided to identify their strengths from an early age and building on those strengths in preparation for suitable careers.
The competency-based curriculum implementation emphasises what students are expected to be able to do rather than what they are expected to know. It was introduced in December 2017.
The introduction of CBC was new to the teachers, parents, and pupils. The teachers had to go back for more training on its implementation, which they had to do in designated institutions.
Furthermore, lessons taught will only last 30 minutes, 10 minutes lesser than the 8-4-4 system. There shall be five lessons in a day for pre-primary school pupils and seven for their lower primary counterparts. The first cohort of students under the Competency Based Curriculum to transition from Upper primary to junior High School joined in early 2023.
Basic Education will be divided into three levels:
- Early education
- Middle school education
- Senior school education
Early education includes pre-primary and lower primary education that will take five years. The five years will consist of two years of pre-primary and three years of lower primary school education. In the two years of primary educations, schools will offer language, mathematical, environmental, psychomotor and creative, and religious education activities.
The middle school level on this new system is made up of three years of upper primary school education and three years of lower secondary education to total six years of middle school education. At this level, schools will offer an optional foreign languages (Arabic, French, German, Mandarin).
The next three years of lower secondary education, grades 7, 8, and 9 and grades 10, 11 and 12, will allow graduates of primary school Grade 6 to join lower secondary at Grade 7. In Grade 4 learners will be introduced to the optional subjects offered at upper primary so as to make informed choices at Grade 7.
Senior School will consist of three years of education targeted at learners in the age bracket of 15 to 17 years and lays the foundation for further education and training at the tertiary level and the world of work. The learner entering this level shall have had opportunities at lower secondary to explore their own potential, interests and personality and is therefore ready to begin specialization in a career path of choice.
The new system will also include an expanded curriculum for Learners with Special Educational Needs.
In the 21st century, transitions in the way of life in Kenya has proved that great and most significant educational system ever used in Kenya has reached its end and can no longer be used to meet the demands of the country. The country is moving towards an inclusive and more innovative direction.
Which way Kenya? Competency Based curriculum (CBC) explained|| Hudson Amenya
Secondary Schools
Secondary school education usually starts at fourteen years of age and, after the introduction of the 8 4-4 system of education which replaced the 7-4-2-3 system, runs for four years. The current secondary education programme is geared towards meeting the needs of both the students that terminate their education after secondary school and those that proceed for higher education.
In this context, the new secondary school curriculum lays greater emphasis on job-oriented courses, such as business and technical education. The public secondary schools are funded by the Government or communities and are managed through a Board of Governors and Parent Teacher Associations.
There has been a tremendous increase in both the number of secondary schools and in student enrolment in response to the rapidly increasing number of primary school leavers seeking entry to the secondary level. In 1963 there were only 151 secondary schools, with a total enrolment of 30,120 students. Today there are nearly 3,000 secondary schools with a total enrolment of 620,000 students. O this total, slightly over 40 per cent are girls.
Secondary School Students in Kenya.
Post Secondary Education
These are institutions that are involved in training high school leavers in various vocational subjects e.g. University.
The first step towards the introduction and development of university education in Kenya was taken in 1961 when the then Royal College, Nairobi was elevated to university college status. The College entered into a special arrangement with the University of London, which enabled it to prepare students for the degrees of the University of London.
With the establishment of the University of East Africa in 1963, the Royal College became the University College, Nairobi. The other constituent colleges of the University of East Africa were Makerere in Uganda and Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania.
Apart from the establishment of Kenyatta College as a constituent college of the University of Nairobi in 1970, the latter remained the only university in the country until the mid-eighties. Since then there has been a tremendous expansion in universities, in response to the high demand for university education in Kenya.
The country currently as five public universities, with the most recently established universities giving greater emphasis to technology and science-oriented degree programmes.
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