External Report on Curriculum Reform Pilot Implementation in Kenya

Abstract

A seven‐month pilot implementation of a competency‐based curriculum2 was subjected to a combined the KICD (Kenyan Institute of Curriculum Design) and external monitoring and evaluation (M&E) process at midpoint of the pilot in the week of 3‐7 July 2017. The initial pilot was for Pre‐Primary 1 and 2 (PP1 and PP2, ages 4‐5), or Primary 1 and 2 (ages 6‐7) where Pre‐Primary was not offered. Of Kenya’s roughly 25 thousand primary schools, 470 participated in the pilot, or almost 2 percent of the total. The sampling objective was to cover all counties in the country, proportionally representing public and private, urban and rural, and boarding and day schools (all of which follow the national curriculum) plus special schools where possible e.g. for the deaf and for the mentally challenged.3 The main M&E was handled by the KICD research team for the full sample; the external M&E was executed within the KICD exercise by the IBE‐UNESCO team, in a random sub‐ set of participating schools in the Mount Kenya region (Nyeri, Kirinyaga, Kerugoya counties). This is a fairly heavily populated agricultural area about 150 km out of Nairobi, which we chose because of the range of school types available and the relative proximity of schools to one another which would allow us to visit a maximum number in the time available. We visited 14 schools, including one for deaf and one for mentally disadvantaged, interviewing 43 pilot program teachers and in addition five parents of children participating in the pilot program. The format of our work was to accompany a KICD official to each school, interviewing teachers and others individually using the KICD questionnaire but with supplementary questions of our own, and in addition inspecting classrooms for signs of learning activities typical of the competency reform (learning corners, local learning materials, furniture adaptable to group and pair work) and observing actual lessons when possible