TALKING POINT
CBC : The good , the bad and the ugly
By Boniface Ngahu
The introduction of Competence Based Curriculum ( CBC ) has surprised many parents who may have thought that it was a simple shift from the 8-4-4 system to the new one . Kenyans from all walks of life have also been caught unawares on the ramifications of the new mode of learning . In the usual characteristics of Kenyan people , there have been a lot of memes attempting to demystify CBC while making fun of the same . An example is given of a female teacher who happens to have her son as one of her pupils , the take home assignment for a weekend to the class was , “ Get your dads phone unlocking pattern , make observations and list your understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of cyber security ”. A subject that sounds so complex like to a common man cyber security is highly simplified when practically applied , this creates strong business case for CBC , in school , life and marketing .
Many times , marketers are tasked with the duty of simplifying complex products and technologies to consumers . There is an analogy of such simplification that says that technologies and methods such as contraceptives , warranty , mobile number portability , space explorations , vaccines and Internet of Things - IOT should be explained in simple terms that your grandmother can understand . This is a communication lesson that CBC seems to address very well . Probably if all goes well we will have less cases of employers complaining of half-baked graduates who cannot perform some simple roles in real world in the discipline they studied such as an accounting graduate who cannot conduct a bank reconciliation .
The extracts from homework books have been providing both humor and confusion including one where a school is said to have conducted a wedding with a religious education assignment requiring the pupils and their parents to conduct a crusade . Others highlighted CBC to pose a data security risk , especially where children expose their parents ’ bad behaviors at home with pictures drawn about family life by children revealing more about parents than need to be exposed .
An example was is a picture of a lady enjoying a glass of wine with the child ’ s caption stating “ my mother likes wine ”. Other pictures involve parents taking substances
“ Conspiracy theorists say that the government saw the quality of leaders elected in some cities and neighboring counties and decided to introduce CBC to forcefully re-educate citizens on basics and common sense which seemed to have been in short supply based on the quality of some of the elected leaders . ” like Sheesha or Miraa . In another example a blogger demonstrated how an assignment to explain how a chicken lays eggs with the help of the dads exposed the absentee dads with some people stating that the dad is rarely at home and how they followed a neighbors hen after it made that noise it makes before laying an egg , only for the hen to go silent after some time without laying the egg . Some netizens also used some difficult CBC assignments as an advert for family planning if one was to avoid being taken back to school by the government .
CBC Will Change Consumer Behavior Patterns to a More Practical Orientation
CBC has come at a time when many developing countries are faced with what is commonly referred to as demographic dividend or time bomb depending on one ’ s perspective . Kenya ’ s median age is 20 years , this means that majority of the citizens are youthful . The current levels of unemployment in such developing countries is so high that those who believe in the time bomb theory state that it is only a matter of time before the market explodes in violence and disorder as a result of high unemployment and resource scarcity . On the other hand , we can look at it from the dividend perspective which looks at it from the Coke side of life , demographic dividend looks at the potential of the youth as a market , labor force et al .
One trend that is emerging is that of form four graduates choosing to enroll in Technical Industrial and Vocational Training ( TVETs ) to pursue practical diplomas as
88
MAL 44 / 21 ISSUE