The CBC Advantage
The Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) is a way of learning that helps learners develop real-life skills instead of just memorizing information for exams. It focuses on teaching things that are useful and can be applied in everyday life. The CBC uses a mix of classroom lessons and practical activities, along with regular assessments and feedback, making learning more engaging and meaningful. It also focuses on mastering concepts, meaning learners don’t just learn facts, but learn how to use acquired competencies in real-life situations. A well-implemented CBC helps learners prepare for life beyond the classroom by promoting important skills like creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, collaboration, lifelong learning, and social responsibility.
In Kenya, the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) has been adopted as the national curriculum. The learning journey starts with Pre-Primary (2 years), followed by Lower Primary (3 years), Upper Primary (3 years), Junior School (3 years), and Senior School (3 years), after which learners can transition to tertiary institutions. Pre-Primary and Lower Primary together form the Early Years Education level, while Upper Primary and Junior School make up the Middle School level.
The Career Pathway Dilemma for Grade 9 Learners
With effect from 2025, Grade 9 learners must make important decisions about their studies and future careers. They are required to choose:
- a general career pathway to follow in senior school. There are three options to choose from:
- Arts and Sports Science
- Social Sciences
- Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).
- career track from 7 different options.
- three elective subjects which will be studied alongside four (4) compulsory subjects
- a senior school that offers the career pathway, track, and subjects of interest.
Note: Even the best classroom experience isn’t enough to fully prepare the learners for the important decisions ahead. Each learner must go on their own self-discovery journey, following all the necessary steps to find a fulfilling career that suits them.
From Dream to Career: The Essential Personal Challenge
Identifying a career path is not a simple one-time, tick-box exercise. It is an ongoing process that demands a lot of time, strategic activities, and careful thought. It is a very personal endeavor that has to be owned and championed by the learner.
While the government and schools are preparing learners for the transition to senior school, parents too must step up now and support their children in making career path decisions. Despite extensive information on CBC, many parents still fail to grasp its demands, benefits, challenges, and their crucial role in their children’s success, even with curriculum limitations. Too many parents remain unaware or choose to ignore the harsh truth: their children’s future is in their hands! Any parent or such other stakeholder that chooses to continue down this path must be prepared to face the consequences of their inaction in the future.
Charting the Path: From Questions to Careers
While the government’s plan to use a questionnaire to help Grade 9 learners explore their interests and choose career paths is a good step, the questionnaire alone cannot adequately cover all aspects of the career planning process. It is just one step in a larger process. The questionnaire assumes that learners are well-prepared in career planning and can complete the form clearly, concisely, and comprehensively, ensuring accurate interpretation for proper senior school placement.
For better results and greater effectiveness, the questionnaire should be used in conjunction with other complementing programs and processes. The key is to equip the learners with the right competencies to identify and use the best processes in any situation, make smart choices, and adjust strategies to make the most of presenting opportunities. It is important to remember that what excites many Grade 9 learners today may not inspire them in the near future. Their interests and aspirations are likely to change as they grow and are exposed to new experiences.
Unpacking the Stress: The Struggles of Kenya CBC Learners
The first group of learners under Kenya’s new Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) has, no doubt, faced many challenges. These learners are the pioneers of a new, untested system, tasked with charting a course for others to follow, with limited resources, support, and confusing untimely guidelines. The system is still being developed and organized into clear deliverables including, structures, content, processes, facilities, materials and exams and many things are being tested for the first time.
The requirement to choose career pathways at the end of Grade 9 presents additional challenges, some of which are highlighted below:
- Learners do not have a clear picture of their entire academic journey, from start to finish, so they find it difficult to plan and prepare well for the future. Since the CBC system is still new in Kenya, stakeholders in education including learners, parents, teachers, and even education authorities are still learning how it works. The program is being implemented gradually, in stages. Majority of learners do not understand the complexities or requirement and provisions for selecting career pathways, tracks, and subjects.
- Learners have limited time to choosing their career pathways, with the first CBC class in Kenya expected to do so in 2025 at the end of Grade 9. However, many learners don’t understand the basic steps in career planning, and that in order to make good choices they must be skilled in the smaller steps that lead to the final decision. They need time to learn, research, practice, and test their options before settling on a particular pathway. The decisions they make will shape not only their educational and professional futures, but also the future of Kenya’s workforce, making it essential that they receive the right guidance and timely support to make informed choices.
Due to their age, level of exposure, and limited knowledge, many learners may make poor choices based on what is popular, what friends want, or what guardians suggest, instead of what matches their own skills and interests. They lack the maturity and life experience to make such critical choices, or understand their implications. Later, learners may regret their choices with serious consequences which may include a sense of loss, bitterness, reduced trust in adults and in the system, wasted resources and potential, unfulfilled expectations, and unproductive careers. Some learners are bound to feel overwhelmed by the pressure to make big decisions without enough support, causing stress and anxiety, impacting their mental health.
- Most parents are navigating the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) with little understanding of its true scope or the long-term impact it will have on their children’s futures. Unfamiliar with the fundamental shift from traditional, exam-focused learning to a system that emphasizes skills, competencies, and personalized learning pathways, many are simply going with the flow, unaware of the challenges or opportunities ahead. Ultimately, this gap in understanding puts parents at risk of unintentionally limiting their children’s potential, leaving learners underprepared to fully capitalize on the curriculum’s potential, and undermining their growth and success.
- Teachers, already overwhelmed with teaching responsibilities, simply do not have the time, competence, or tools to guide learners effectively through the career pathway selection exercise. In fact, many teachers have limited training in CBC and lack the resources to implement it effectively. Without sufficient investment in appropriate teacher training, there is a real risk that learners could be steered toward pathways that do not serve their best interests, ultimately undermining the very goals of the CBC. Large class sizes and other contextual factors also make it difficult for teachers to provide personalized support.
- The government, already grappling with limited resources to effectively train teachers for the demands of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) and provide related facilities and materials, is about to face even greater challenges: developing and executing a clear and effective approach to career pathway selection, equipping teachers adequately to guide learners in making informed choices, and ensuring correct placement of learners in senior school.
With the complexity of emerging industries, evolving job markets, and the unique needs of every student, teachers will need specialized training to help learners identify career pathways that align with their competencies, interests, and potential. The government’s ability to rise to this challenge will be pivotal in shaping a generation that is both well-prepared and market ready.
- Given the limited time available, there is a significant risk that the government may greatly rely on subject scores to determine career paths and place learners in senior school. Relying on the performance of children in certain subjects to dictate their career pathways is not only shortsighted but a fundamental misunderstanding of how interests, competencies, and potential develop. This approach overlooks the complex factors that influence academic performance, such as test-taking anxiety, teaching quality and effectiveness, socio-economic background, exposure levels, resource limitations, and even natural aptitude, which may have little to do with a child’s true passion or long-term potential. For example, a child who struggles with mathematics due to a lack of access to quality resources may still excel in Arts or Social Sciences.
By pushing children into careers based solely on their performance in narrow academic criteria, adults risk stifling their interests and preventing them from discovering and enjoying satisfying, meaningful careers. In the short term, this can lead to disengagement, burnout, and low self-esteem. In the long term, society suffers as individuals are channeled into jobs that do not reflect their strengths or desires, potentially leading to widespread dissatisfaction, underperformance, and a workforce devoid of innovation and personal fulfillment.
- Currently, career materials are mainly for older persons, focusing more on the work environment and offering little on academic preparation. The language used is complex, and the concepts are presented in ways that are hard for junior school learners to understand. Support tools like aptitude and personality tests only cover small parts of the career planning process. Available online materials are spread across different sites and not comprehensive – it is hard to find everything in one place. To address these challenges, many educators may, knowingly or unknowingly, be forced to adopt temporary, substandard solutions from entrepreneurs, without considering their impact on learners, and at high costs to unsuspecting parents/guardians.
- Learners will also be required to choose schools that offer the career pathways, tracks, and subjects that they are interested in. This is bound to cause untold anxiety not just for learners and parents/guardians but also for schools. The delay in confirming senior school categorization may cause challenges for schools in planning and making sure they have the right facilities and resources to support a smooth transition and learning.
Informed and concerned stakeholders understand that Grade 9 learners will feel overwhelmed by the anxiety of making the many choices at the end of the year, and that making a wrong choice could have long-lasting consequences. Unfortunately, whether they are ready or not, learners must make a decision about their career path, track, subjects, or school when the time comes, even if it is not the right one.
The time to act is now. Parents, teachers, and communities must step up to ensure that learners have the knowledge, tools, and support that they need to make informed choices that will positively shape their futures. The stakes are too high for inaction.
Preparing for the Big Career Decision
Given the importance of proper education and support to help learners become active and meaningful contributors to society, and the challenges that they currently face including curriculum gaps, age-related limitations, lack of resources and competent support, and uncertain program processes, it is very clear that junior school learners, especially the inaugural cohort, urgently need a well-thought out effective solution to assist them as quickly as possible.
We must advance their preparedness by effectively equipping the learners with the knowledge and skills that they need to handle and overcome both current and future academic and career challenges. The key is to have a comprehensive solution that all children, including vulnerable and marginalized populations, can access at the same standard of quality, thereby promoting equal opportunity.
A robust careers program will help learners to excel, despite system challenges, by empowering them to take charge of their academic and career goals, and proactively find opportunities to achieve them, supported by the school curriculum. The good news for learners and parents feeling pressured is that all is not lost. Although time is running out, there is a great solution to help them prepare their children for the important career pathway decision ahead!
The Solution: Empowering Futures Through TCEN Career Readiness Program
The Cardinal Education Network (TCEN) Ltd offers a comprehensive careers program comprising 23 online lessons that simplify career planning by breaking down complex concepts into easy-to-understand content for Junior School learners. The program provides comprehensive education to understand what career planning is, what it involves, how it is done, and why it is important. Learners have access to information and tools that help them undertake self-assessment, explore and identify their dream careers, and set goals to achieve them. It supports the CBC mission by guiding learners through the structure and provisions of CBC, including how the CBC education system works, from start to finish, the various career pathways, tracks, and subjects, how CBC connects to their career goals and the job market, equipping them to make informed choices. The program also provides access to the right tools, resources, opportunities, and support to start early career planning, use their time wisely to learn, and prepare to complete the questionnaire well. Hands-on activities, links to helpful resources, quizzes, and alerts help to reinforce learning and track progress.
Additionally, the program allows learners to learn at their own pace, anytime and anywhere, helping even CBC’s first cohort prepare in time for the career pathway selection. Learners can register and access the program using any internet-enabled device, such as a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop, making it easy to integrate in daily schedules. A dedicated Learner Dashboard facilitates a personalized experience, allowing learners to complete lessons independently or with support from a parent/guardian, or teacher. The course is fairly priced, making it affordable and accessible for everyone.
The Do-It-Yourself career course is suitable for learners of all ages, curricula, and levels. It is strongly recommended for Kenya CBC learners in junior school to prepare effectively for career pathway selection. The course is also recommended for teachers and parents, as it will equip them with the knowledge and skills needed to provide meaningful support to the learners.
Learner-Teach-Parent/Mentor Approach to Confirming Learning Success
The Learner-Teach-Parent/Mentor approach requires learners to transfer knowledge to their parents or mentors. This reinforces the learner’s understanding, confirming their progress and deepening their mastery of the material. Transfer of knowledge creates a ripple effect that extends beyond the class. Many parents who may not fully understand the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) will be educated by their children, helping to bridge the knowledge gap. As a result, we will cultivate a society that is better informed, more engaged, and equipped to contribute positively to policy and educational advancements, and meet the evolving demands of the job market. This holistic approach ensures that learning is not only a personal achievement but a community-building tool for future growth and development.
Conclusion
While it is important to critically examine the education system and highlight its shortcomings, it is equally essential to propose practical solutions to address current and future challenges. Instead of condemning the system entirely, a more constructive approach is to identify specific problem areas, focus on them, and develop targeted solutions. While highlighting challenges, we should also acknowledge successes to inspire hope, as unchecked criticism can harm and demoralize learners who rely on the system. A key part of the solution lies in sharing accurate information and fostering collaboration among all stakeholders in education. TCEN Career Readiness program advances information sharing and collaboration.
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