CBC: Education Ministry Reduces Lessons In Primary Schools Under New System

• The Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms Report recommended the reduction of the learning area at all primary school levels under the CBC system
• TUKO.co.ke understands that the move to reduce the CBC subjects is geared towards eliminating duplication and overlaps across various levels of basic education
• In the meantime, the rationalisation of learning areas at senior schools is ongoing, and a circular will be released during the first term of 2024

Dennis Lubanga, a Kenyan journalist at TUKO.co.ke, brings more than 10 years of experience covering politics, news, and feature stories across digital and print media in Kenya.

Nairobi - The Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD), in consultation with the Ministry of Education, has reduced the learning area at all primary school levels under the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) system.

This is in line with the recommendations of the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms Report.

TUKO.co.ke understands that the move is geared towards eliminating duplication and overlaps across various levels of basic education.

The new learning structure will come into effect in early January 2024.

The rationalisation of learning areas at senior schools

In the meantime, the rationalisation of learning areas at senior schools is ongoing, and a circular will be released during the first term of 2024.

KICD Ratiolised CBC Lessons

1. Lower Primary (Grades 1-3)

- Learning areas reduced from 9 to 7

- Lessons reduced from 35 to 31 per week

2. Upper Primary (Grades 4, 5 and 6)

- Learning areas reduced from 10 to 8

- Lessons reduced from 40 to 35 per week

3. Junior Secondary

- Learning areas reduced from 14 to 9

- Lessons reduced from 45 to 40 per week

TUKO.co.ke previously reported that Embakasi East Member of Parliament Babu Owino asked the government to do away with CBC education system.

Why Babu Owino wants CBC scrapped

During the question time for Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu, the lawmaker said the system was wasting learners by turning them into experiments.

"The CBC which has now become the incompetency-based curriculum, the CS, can we do away with this programme? Because we're wasting our children, they're acting as a control experiment which is going to backfire," Owino said on Wednesday, June 8.

The outspoken legislator decried the shortage of teachers in Junior Secondary Schools where he said one teacher was handling a minimum of eight subjects.

"You find that in junior secondary school, one teacher is handling a maximum of about 8 to 10 subjects. How viable is it for a teacher to prepare for a subject that he will teach the following day?" he posed.

The Embakasi East lawmaker also questioned the cost of CBC, arguing that schools have been sending learners home for certain materials yet, primary education is supposed to be free.