According to Dr Obura, Education key stakeholders have already embraced competitive national exams even though they do not want to be associated with the idea given that they have promising “manna and quails” all along.
Our mega concern is the fact that education authorities have not yet revealed a standardized assessment method which will be used at Grade six to select learners into secondary schools.
Dr Amina Mohammed’s reign at the Ministry of Education was never welcome given the high par that had already been set by her predecessor Dr Fred Matiang’ i.
The major reason was her calm personality and leadership style which greatly contrasted with Dr Matiang’ i’s bulldozer approach.
Her unwelcome announcement that Kenya is not ready for the CBC is proof enough of her political naivety.
How can you admit that a policy has failed when the government has already convinced Kenyans to embrace it?
If you critically analyze Dr Amina Mohammed’s transfer to a lesser docket- Sports, it is easy to connect to the time she publicly declared that Kenya was not well prepared to roll out the Competence-Based Curriculum.
What if Dr Amina was right?
EVALUATION
Most Kenyans believe that the recently concluded nationwide grade three assessment tests were chaotic.
If you are among them, then whatever you witnessed is just a debut. More elninos are yet to come.
According to Dr Anna Obura, an education expert, who reacted to a column in The Daily Nation on CBC lat week, 2022 when the current grade three pupils are expected to select secondary schools is the year to focus on.
This is because education authorities have not yet come up with a standard procedure to be used in 2022 when selecting preferred secondary schools.
To date, we are still holding on to the tradition of appointing “multiple” commissions to look into this matter.
So far, another task force has been set up to inquire about the assessment method.
The question is, how well prepared are we to roll out the new CBC curriculum?
EXAMINATIONS
Dr Obura is greatly convinced that education authorities have already settled for competitive national examinations.
However, they want to exonerate themselves by making it appear like they are not pushing for the idea.
After all, how will the people receive the news, having been promised change all along?
According to Dr Obura, the public will end up demanding for a standard, scientifically designed, and administered, fairly marked and moderated examinations.
According to the expert, the government is very much aware of this but it is waiting for “the people to demand a competitive exam.”
“If the people demand it, who are we to refuse?” This is the statement they are likely to issue to let themselves off the hook.
The Ministry of Education is waiting for the moment the public will lament for examinations.
It is a wonder the educational planners never factored in this glaring gap before the rollout of CBC?
There is more honour in honesty. The ministry should have acknowledged this from the start.
Three days after Dr Obura’s e-mail which predicted the return of national exams, KUPPET showed up at the taskforce and demanded a national competitive exam at Grade 6.
This is the sweet music that the Ministry of Education wants to hear.
