National Curriculum Development Center together with the Ministry of Education and Sports in 2020 started implementing the new lower secondary curriculum that is two years now , but this was disrupted by the covid 19 pandemic lockdown when school were closed. This curriculum was learner centered and competency based. Students who were trained in this curriculum are expected to complete O level by 2024.
National Curriculum Development Center carried out a needs assessment to identify the gaps in the current a level curriculum.
“These learners have been exposed to a curriculum which is learner centered and competency based. We felt that it was necessary for us to look in to the A level curriculum , then issues came up like issues of HIV/AIDS ,climate change and so on including covid 19.So we have not been viewing the whole curriculum ,we have just been bringing on board a few sections to integrate in the curriculum “ says the deputy director in charge of academics curriculum development center Benedict Nambi .
Results from the study indicate that the section of the members of the public would have loved to have the A level curriculum is vocationalized hence NCDC embarking on the carrying out stake holders consultations to see whether such a curriculum is implementable
“We are thinking that there are different ways ,we can choose from, others were proposing that we could have each of the learners have a vocational subject in addition to their normal subjects while others felt that we could also consider vocationalizing the subjects themselves by integrating vocational elements and concepts with in the subjects” Nambi added.
Since the curriculum is still under consultation stage NCDC has not yet determined the subjects students are going to offer, combinations and curriculum menu since some members of the public propose a reduction. In the new lower secondary curriculum ICT was integrated as a tool for learning to expose learners to ICT skills, this was coupled with the covid 19 that taught them that blended learning needs to be given priority . However as they reviewed the A level respondents propose that they integrate ICT in all subjects at A level and also learn it as an independent subject.
