Grace Akinyi: Why CBC system is bad for Kenyan children

The troubled implementation of the Curriculum Based Education (CBE system) which is popularly referred to as the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC system) by parents has raised voices calling for the scrapping of the system and a return to an improvised 8-4-4 system.

One of these voices is that of Grace Akinyi. Ms. Akinyi, writing on her platform used her experience to show how the subjecting children who are barely teenagers to predetermined career pathways in a society that is as unequal as Kenya’s is flawed and wrong.

Here is what Ms. Akinyi says:

“I’m using my voice to amplify this because I was the kind of student that CBC was designed to eliminate quietly and early…

…but at least I survived a system that allowed escape. Now CBC is sealing all the exit routes for poor students like I was.

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In my recent scholarship outreach for Cambridge University, almost 90% of the thousands of applicants I met want to pursue a postgraduate pathway different from their undergraduate degree….

What does that mean?

It means that…..

People change…

Interests evolve.

Economies shift.

Careers are not linear.

The old 8-4-4 system for all its violence and flaws allowed for this fluidity.

8-4-4 allowed late bloomers, hybrids, and people who discovered themselves at 25 or even 50 to still thrive in dif00ferent career paths.

CBC is locking that out.

CBC assumes that a 12 year old child already knows their destiny……

The CBC system ignores the fact that exposure, confidence, language, mentorship and resources shape ability far more than talent ever will.

In the real world, career paths are messy!

I am today recruiting for a scholarship…

But before that I’ve been a thespian, a salesperson, a hotelier, a researcher and my future now points towards tech…

Under CBC logic, my trajectory would be seen as incoherent or even impossible.

And this is what CBC is doing….

Our children are being routed early into fixed narrow pathways as though at 12 you already know what will happen….

Or as though a child from Masiro Kathieno and a child from Karen are navigating the same universe of opportunities.

For a country like Kenya that has 90% of its resources concentrated in Karen and less than 1% in Masiro Kathieno, this is a catastrophe!

Also….

Was it not this CBC that was sold to us as an antidote to competition, ranking and elite obsession?

I was told that CBC is the only way to end the violence of exam worship.

But where are we now…..?

The shock on my face when I saw the top CBC scorers published in a magazine, proudly labelled, ranked and celebrated.

What exactly changed?

If we still publish top performers, still sort children publicly, assign value early then what exactly changed?

And parents are still where they were in asking us stupid questions of ” how is Ngiya Girls, how is Precious Blood….how is Ogande”

I’m even told your sons have been called to Girls schools?

And you’re taking it calmly…..because two term slogans are more important to you than securing your children’s future…

Anyway….. what do I know?

Watoto wao wako huku Yukei nawaonanga.

Na Australia, Canada, US because why not.

Sisi acha tuendelee na tutam , threesome, one-some….ama ndio huitwa nini hayo mambo ya Goliathi na Soprano.

SEE MORE: Kenya should scrap CBE education system and go back to 8-4-4 system