CBC Curriculum in Kenya: Several reasons have been tabled on why the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) is against the implementation of the new competency based curriculum (CBC). But now, a new report suggests that the real reason why the teachers’ union has been arms against the CBC is due to fears that the role of teachers will be diminished.
Apparently, says a report that appeared in the Saturday Standard, top union leadership now cites international interference on teachers’ role in education.
“A confidential report by Knut secretary general Wilson Sossion argues that CBC reforms fit into the global education reforms movement modeled around huge business interests, increasingly being rejected worldwide,” says the report.
The report further says that the Sossion brief to union officials argues that by reducing teachers to mere facilitators of learning, children will be allowed to learn on their own, creating what he terms ‘artificial intelligence’ in education.
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“The Knut arguments are premised on a report by the global union of teachers –Education International (EI). Until last year, Sossion was the African representative at the Education International.The EI findings of Pearson 2025: transforming teaching and privatising education data, warns that teachers roles in the learning process will be diminished.Sossion said the direct supply of textbooks to schools by the government and provision of curriculum materials is a strategy towards personalising learning programmes that integrate artificial intelligence. He argues this will open opportunities for international business interests to pilot commercial models that will affect quality of teaching and learning in Kenya,” says the report.
Knut argues that the global plan being adopted by Kenya is to package learning data in a form that would minimise the role of teachers in schools. The report quotes Sossion as saying the following: “There is a global trend emerging which claim that too much presence of teachers in classrooms interferes with the learning and exploration of the child and therefore their roles must be reduced.”