It has emerged that Parents will have to shoulder a huge part of the cost of implementing the new competency based curriculum.

A huge sum of money will be required to prepare basic, tertiary and university institutions in readiness for the anticipated transition of learners under the new 2-6-3-3-3 curriculum.

Construction of new classrooms, recruitment of additional teaching staff and training of existing ones to align with the new curriculum are some of the plans with the huge amount.

CBC implementation also demands revision of Courses for middle level colleges and reviewing of students funding regime, including loans and bursaries.

Findings of the CBC task force report reveal that, based on past education funding trends; the government and parents have been the major contributors to the education sector.

“Central government and households are the largest funders of education. For instance, during the 2018/2019 Financial Year, 53 per cent of funding came from the central government, with 33 per cent from households,” reads the report.

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According to the report, donor funding and private sector contributions is not adequate to support full implementation of the new curriculum.The implication is that parents, who are the second largest contributors to education funding, will play a critical role in funding their children’s education under the new education system.

The task force also refers to the Kamunge Report (1988) that highlighted the practice of cost sharing in financing education sector between government and the communities, parents, religious and private organisations in operations.

“In implementing the cost-sharing strategy in the financing of education and training, the extent of sharing will vary from time to time and in each area of cost-sharing, depending on the performance of the national economy,” reads the report.

Presently, parents meet direct costs such as boarding and activity fees, uniforms, transportation and meals as government bears the full cost of tuition and infrastructure.

Parents are already bearing the burden of the CBC as new expectations of learners’ class activities that involve practical undertakings for homework are draining them financially.

Education stakeholders yesterday said that even under the current regime of inadequate donor-funding and private sector support, schools still rope in parents to support in expanding and improving institutions’ infrastructure.

The report recommends that in less than two years, the government must provide 1.5 million places in secondary schools to cater for anticipated double intake of learners, further putting pressure on funding that may be transferred to parents. It also requires the government to hire more teachers and train more staff to align with the CBC.

Sources within the task force have revealed that the cost of implementing the new curriculum will be huge, calling for enhanced government funding and exploring innovating financing options. Part of the innovative financing options will include bringing in parents to contribute more towards the education of their children.

President Uhuru Kenyatta has unveiled a new state department to oversee the ongoing implementation of the Competence Based Curriculum.

The State Department for Implementation of Curriculum Reforms within the Ministry of Education will implement roll of the new education system including recommendations of the just released taskforce report.

“In this regard, to ensure effective implementation of these recommendations, and other curriculum reforms, I have on this 9th Day of February, 2021 set my hand and presidential seal and established a new State Department for Implementation of Curriculum Reforms vested in the Ministry of Education,” President Kenyatta declared.

The Head of State announced the changes at KICC in during the unveiling of a taskforce report dubbed ‘Enhancing Access, Relevance and Quality for Effective Curriculum Reforms Implementation’.

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Kenyatta said that CBC will make Kenya’s education system responsive to the demands of the modern world and rallied Kenyans to back it.

“We are at a tipping-point in our education system. The old must give way to the new. The summons of our times requires us to re-imagine how we have educated our children.

Besides equipping Kenyan children with the competencies needed to excel in the 21st century, the Head of State said CBC will empower Kenyans to be better citizens.

“On citizenship, we have a crisis of competence and our education system must give us a response. Youth violence and pessimism are partly a result of low civic competence amongst citizens.And this is because we have not taught our children the values of citizen participation from an early age. This is why youth pessimism and blind activism are on the rise,” Kenyatta said.