The outgoing Cabinet Secretary for Education Prof George Magoha has come to parents’ defence saying they are not illiterate as he explained their role in the new Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).
Magoha was speaking at a Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) event after the World Teachers Day celebrations where he defended the role of parents in the CBC.
Magoha used his late mother as an example saying that the parents’ input in the new system of education is important because no teacher has taught him whatever his mother taught him.
“Starting from my own standpoint, I trained elsewhere, and it is not only teachers in basic education that are teachers; anybody who teaches is a teacher starting with my late beloved mother, who taught me many things when I was sitting next to the traditional jiko that no teacher has been able to teach me up to now,” said Magoha.
Further, he said that the strength of the CBC was through the involvement of parents and guardians as they are important because learners get exposure to what is not taught in the common classroom.
Magoha was responding to some Kenyans and leaders who claimed that most parents were illiterate and could not actively engage in their kids’ academic journey.
“I hear certain people saying some parents are illiterate, there is no illiterate parent. Don’t I look extremely good and intelligent? My mother never went to school,” said CS Magoha.
Magoha said that the new system of education was not complete without the involvement of parents and guardians.
CBC Concerns
Some parents have reportedly decided to transfer their children to international curricula due to the challenges occasioned by the competency-based curriculum that was introduced in the country to replace the 8-4-4 system.
The parents complained that the CBC was too engaging and expensive to be sustained by a Kenya common household.
Other parents said that they did not have enough time to spend with their children in doing co-curricular activities as directed by the CBC syllabus because they were busy looking for money to pay for, in their view, the expensive CBC.