KNEC 2022 Grade 6 KPSEA Multichoice Assessment Format; A Detriment To CBC Objectives! Education Experts Warn.
The government through the ministry of education (MOE) has made milestones in the implementation of the new curriculum christened Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) This has been shown by the now possible transition of the pioneer class (Grade Six) to junior secondary in the next year 2023. KNEC has gone ahead and produced the timetable for the Grade Six National examination which has been scheduled for the 28th of November 2022- the 30th of the same month. CLICK HERE FOR THE 2022 KNEC KPSEA TIMETABLE FREE PDF DOWNLOAD
However, the assessment of these grade six (CBC pioneer class) learners is experiencing challenges that the Ministry of Education officials are calling teething problems, especially with the national examiner (KNEC) Preferring to change the format and structure of the examinations.
Details are emerging that the national examiner is opting to have multiple choice questions in the November KPSEA Examination, a far departure from what some stakeholders like the teachers and parents anticipated. They were looking forward to having structured questions as had been intimated before.
Information reaching us from KNEC is that it arrived at this decision having considered the cost of the entire process of assessment from the administration of the actual papers to marking. The Cost being very high, the council was forced to opt for a cheaper option to cut down on the whole cost of managing these exams! SEE HOW MULTICHOICE FORMAT WILL SAVE THE COUNTRY BILLIONS!
Sources within KNEC confirmed that as a council they are financially constrained and they, therefore, had to opt for an assessment that will be within reach financially. It is from this background that the council is mulling over eliminating the writing of the Inashas and the compositions which have to be marked manually by examiners, unlike the multiple-choice questions that are managed by the OMR machines. It should be noted that the OMR marked exams not only reduce the cost of running the national exams but also enable the release of the results within a significantly short time because of the many answer sheets of the candidates within an hour thus proving to be very effective.
The Education Stakeholders in the country have already raised concerns regarding this format of evaluation claiming that this would water down the original objectives of CBC, which aimed at evaluating the candidate’s ability to think critically, analytically, and also her/his ability to solve problems! Dr. Evalyne Jepkemoi who is an authority in matters of education policy raised eyebrows at the apparent pandemonium over KPSEA citing ill preparation.
” KNEC does not have enough resources to mark open-ended examinations. the form of assessment they are now resorting to is different altogether and assesses different abilities from structured questions”, Jepkemei observed.
Mr. Alex Majani, a seasoned retired Deputy Director of Education says that the fact that KNEC has without notice changed the format of assessment from the structured to the multiple-choice formats is an explicit red flag of the unpreparedness of the government in changing the curriculum. He observed ” The compositeness of such assessment needed investment in human resources, but we did not. It is also said that teachers have been left to the spectacle of issues they need to prosecute and give guidance on”
It is in the public domain that the budget and Appropriations Committee tabled a report before the National Assembly decrying poor funding and tasking workload as major reasons why the new curriculum was being rolled out at a snail’s pace! It emerged that the Committee had been allocated very little monies compared to the 1.6 Million Grade Six Learners who will be transcoding to junior Secondary under the 2022/23 budget. This comes only a day after the president Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta defended and vouched for the implementation of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) as a transformative system of education during his ten-year stint at the helm of leadership. This was in his rather long speech during the Madaraka Day Celebrations on Wednesday.
He observed that” A system that brings about freedom to be creative and innovative as individuals. this is the promise of the CBC and that is why in December 2022, the pioneer CBC class, now in its sixth grade, will transition to junior Secondary”
He Continued assuring the public that as much as he was exiting leadership in August, his government had already put up structures in place to ensure that the CBC implementation does not come to a halt. This came out in the background of the Cabinet Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Prof Magoha, having had a clash with some political formations that are apparently against the curriculum.
The CBC pioneer Cohort will be sitting for their National KPSEA Examination from the 28th -30th November 2022 as per the following scheduled timetable. CLICK HERE FOR THE 2022 KPSEA TIMETABLE FREE DOWNLOAD