NAIROBI JUNE 13, 2017 (CISA) – Piloting of the newly proposed education system began yesterday June 12 in 470 select schools across the country.
The piloting of the new (2-6-3-3) education system targets more than 30,000 learners from pre-unit up to standard three that will end this academic year and will run until the end of the term.
Already, 2,000 teachers have completed the second phase of training of the new education system set to replace the current 8-4-4 system which has been in place since 1985.
Curriculum developers from the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) and Ministry of Education officials are in the counties to monitor the exercise, reported The Standard.
The roll-out of the new curriculum is part of education reforms that aim to see learners examined through continuous assessment offered by the respective schools to enable the learners’ transition by gauging the students’ skills, competencies and abilities as opposed to a single national examination.
“The system will focus on other abilities instead of just drilling learners to pass exams,” said Peter Kega, the KICD team leader for Turkana and West Pokot counties during teacher training at Nasokol Girls’ High School.
According to the new system (2-6-3-3-3), primary education will be split into two categories, which is Pre-primary and Primary education, taking two and six years respectively.
Students will then advance to Junior Secondary School a stage that would take them three years before joining the Senior Secondary level.
At the senior level, they would spend another three years focusing on their areas of specialisation depending on their abilities and interests. For instance, if one prefers Science subjects of the Arts, at this stage is when he/she has the privilege to choose.
After the senior secondary stage, students would go ahead to either enrol at vocational training centres or pursue university education.