Face-off looms as KNUT asks teachers to boycott new curriculum training

A face-off is looming between the government and the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) ahead of the launch of a training on the new Competence Based Curriculum on Tuesday, April 23.

Education Cabinet Secretary Prof. George Magoha is expected to launch the four-day training workshop of 90,000 teachers at Uhuru Gardens Primary School in Langata, Nairobi but KNUT has asked its members to boycott the event.

KNUT insists that the government has not done sufficient sensitization among the key education stakeholders.

Last week on Wednesday, KNUT Secretary General Wilson Sossion termed the training as “a violation of the law”.

Ironically, however, the union had previously fought the new curriculum on grounds that teachers had not been properly trained for it.

In March this year, Sossion claimed that a two-month research on teacher preparedness had revealed that there exists a huge gap in implementing the competency-based curriculum.

“Trainers, teachers and facilitators are still incompetent in the delivery of CBC approach to teachers and learners……as teachers we are not going to cheat the public that we are teaching….we are not…we don’t have the capacity…,” said Sossion.

Some of the issues cited by the union against the new curriculum include; rushed implementation, lack of support in monitoring books, inadequate infrastructure due to extremely high enrolment and failure to involve the participation of private schools in the training.

The KNUT boss described the new curriculum as a foreign investment that seeks to drown the Kenyan learners in the long run.

During his vetting at the National Assembly last week, nominated Cabinet Secretary for Education Professor George Magoha said he had conviction the 2-6-6-3 curriculum will be a success.