Why CS Amina Mohamed changed tune on curriculum roll out

The education sector has now left stakeholders jittery after Education Cabinet Secretary Ambassador Amina Mohammed’s u-turn on the new curriculum roll out date.

This was after she announced that the new curriculum will be rolled out in January 2019, days after she had announced a 2020 roll out.

So what exactly changed in the span of one week when the roll-out was put on hold?

On the 15th of December, CS Amina held a crisis meeting with education stakeholders over the delay of the roll- out of the new curriculum.

But just seven days later, the ministry’s stand changed.

According to sources, the decision to continue with the roll out in January next year was pushed through by influential persons within the government.

Reports indicate that the roll out, being a pet project of the government was to go on at all costs. The piloting of the new competence based curriculum began in May this year.

At the same time, UNICEF, being the biggest funder of the project, commissioned an audit of the pilot process using a team that was led by Professor Laban Ayiro, Former Vice Chancellor at Moi University.

The report however did not bear any positive news when CS Amina got to look at it.

According to the report, there was no legal framework to guide the project, there was inadequate training of teachers and there lacked a budget set aside to cater for the process.

These being similar concerns raised by the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) at the initiation stage of the project.

“A budget of Ksh.320 plus billion on top of Ksh.468 to education next year is like Ksh.900 billion, can the economy do that? Definitely not! We will be inviting a white elephant that will be extremely difficult to save this country from,” said Wilson Sossion – Secretary General, KNUT.

The government however insists that training of teachers will be done simultaneously with the implementation of the new curriculum with the development of an assessment framework expected in March 2019.

At the moment, it is all joy for the Kenya Publishers Association and the government, but for education CS Amina, the future of the education sector is uncertain.