Having followed a 7-4-2-3 (seven years of primary, 4 years of secondary, 2 years of high school and 3 years of university) system of education in Kenya and after finishing my form six (the 2 in the system) at Friends School Kamusinga in 1975 I taught as a UT (untrained teacher) at Luuya girls’ secondary school in Bungoma at level 4 in the system (I had also taught at Luuya primary school in Kakamega at level 7 after finishing level 4 in the system). In 1977 I won a government scholarship to go to study in the then Soviet Union or the USSR under the then technical cooperation agreement between the USSR and Kenya.
In the then USSR I discovered that education was based on a 3-5-2-5 (3 years of primary school, 5 years of lower secondary school, 2 years of upper secondary school and five years of university). That means that after my form six in Kenya I joined an equivalent of Kenyan form three leavers to start university in the Soviet Union. Whereas Soviet students took 15 years to earn a 1st degree Kenyans took 16 years to do so but that is a story for another article.
My focus in this story is that when I was in my second year at the Leningrad Finance and Economics Institute aka university, my soviet counterparts were informed of where they will be employed when they finally graduated. That would mean that they would never “tarmac” or look for employment after graduation. I discovered that this was courtesy the government Gosplan which was the State Planning Committee, that managed and planned the country’s economy.
In matters education the Gosplan would annually collect data on births and start planning for the educational progression of the born kids up to the time they graduated including planning for job placements after graduation. There may be a downside on this but again let that be another story
Now back to Kenya. The 2025 academic year marks a significant change to the education system, as for the first time in 39 years, there was no form one admissions in secondary schools. Form one classes in the country are empty due to a historic shift in the education system from 8-4-4 to the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) 2-6-6-3 model which strictly is 2-3-3-3-3-3 (2 pre-primary years, 3 lower primary years, 3 upper primary years, 3 lower secondary years, 3 upper secondary years and 3 university years making it 17 years to earn a degree or a year longer than during my time and 2 years longer than the then USSR system.
Ironically whereas in 2025 there are empty classes in secondary schools, the government seems to be at a loss on how to provide classes for the last CBC grade and primary schools head teachers are struggling to see how to house the final CBC grade nine. A situation of artificial scarcity amidst plenty has reared its ugly head. Thus, whereas there is scarcity of classrooms to house grade nine primary school pupils there is plenty of empty rooms in secondary schools that would have been occupied by the grade nine pupils had they transited to form one. There are also supposed to be plenty of funds in the government coffers: the funds that would have gone for form one capitation under the Free Day Secondary Education (FDSE) initiative. The message I want to give here is one of poor planning if I may reflect of the USSR Gosplan approach.
If economics can be described as the study of how people and societies use scarce resources to produce, distribute, and consume goods and services then the situation of scarcity amidst plenty described above begs a question: are our economic planners doing their job well?
If planning can be defined as the process of setting goals, deciding how to achieve them, and organizing the resources and efforts needed to accomplish those goals and one that involves:
- Anticipating or considering future needs and circumstances
- Deciding or making choices about the best course of action
- Preparing or getting ready for potential challenges or opportunities
Then one may ask: was there proper planning of CBC?
If there is one key lesson I have learnt from the current Kenyan CBC situation then it is that a successful project requires proper project planning. My understanding of Project planning in the context of CBC is the process of determining what it takes to complete the full CBC cycle including a specified time frame and budget. CBC project planning should convert the CBC government vision into a clear plan of action that should guide all the actors along the CBC value chain.
In project management terms the CBC may be said to be midway and therefore an MPR (mid-project review) may be a good thing to do. In this MPR a comprehensive CBC stakeholder analysis which was avoided or poorly done at the onset of the hurriedly and controversially introduced CBC is a must. The analysis should produce a matrix which as a minimum could be similar to the template below
| Stakeholder | Stakeholder influence on CBC: low/medium/
high |
Impact: how much does CBC impact the stakeholder: low/medium/
high |
Interest: what is the interest of the stakeholder in CBC | Contribution: how could the stakeholder contribute to CBC | Strategy: how can the stakeholder be engaged in the CBC | |
| Primary stakeholders: those ultimately and directly affected by CBC | Pupils | Low | High | To get employable competency | ??? | ??? |
| Parents | Medium | High | Have the kids get employed | ??? | ??? | |
| Secondary stakeholders: the intermediaries or those indirectly affected by CBC | Schools | Medium | Medium | To graduate the students | ??? | ??? |
| Teachers | Medium | Medium | To graduate the students | ??? | ??? | |
| Tertiary: those who influence CBC | Government | High | Low | Achieve government goals | ??? | ??? |
| Politicians | High | Low | Accumulate voters | ??? | ??? | |
| Development partners | Medium | Low | Achieve development partners’ goals | ??? | ??? | |
The ??? in this matrix need to be well thought out going forward.
Prof. Henry M. Bwisa