Kenya’s new education system is changing how students are assessed and guided into senior school, creating both opportunities and challenges for learners, parents, and teachers.
The Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) now spreads evaluation across multiple years, meaning that a student’s final grade is no longer determined by a single exam.
During an interview with Radio Generation on Tuesday, Boaz Waruku, Strategy and Policy Advisor at the Elimu Bora Working Group, said the system tracks progress from early grades.
“Almost like my full-time engagement, looking at what is happening in education,” he said, explaining that assessments start at grade three to gauge what learners have achieved since grade one. These early evaluations are school-based but moderated nationally, giving teachers a clearer picture of each child’s progress.
As students move to grade six, they face a national assessment to guide their transition into junior school. In junior school, the evaluation becomes more rigorous.
Unlike the old 8-4-4 system, where the final exam in standard eight accounted for 100% of a student’s grade, the CBC as explained by Waruku now combines several components: 20% from grade six national assessments, 20% from school-based assessments in grades seven and eight, and 60% from the national summative exam.
The year-long transition process also involves parents and teachers in helping learners select senior school pathways that match their skills and interests. Students can choose from three tracks: STEM, focusing on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; social sciences; and arts and sports.
“There’s nothing like an analysis I’m doing. I’m simply refreshing us how it is that the government is trying to do and see that it goes through those three pathways and continue on the pathways,” Waruku said.
This new approach aims to provide a more balanced evaluation of students, reduce pressure on single exams, and ensure learners follow pathways that suit their abilities.
However, the shift has also highlighted confusion and adjustment challenges for families navigating the transition for the first time.
The 8-4-4 system of education was established in 1985 when the first group of pupils sat the KCPE exams when Kenya switched from the previous 7-4-2-3 system to the then-new 8-4-4.
The system was introduced by the late former president Daniel Arap Moi, with the intention of improving the quality and relevance of education in the country.
The 8-4-4 system has received its fair share of both criticism and praise, but as the years passed by, the shortfalls seemed to outweigh the good, leading to numerous attempts to review and fix the curriculum through a number of commissions, whose recommendations eventually led to the birth of the current CBC system.
The curtains fell on the 8-4-4 system primary sector in November 2023, after a total of 26 million pupils have gone through the exams in 39 cohorts.
The first batch of KCPE candidates, numbering 330,370, sat the maiden exam in 1985, the numbers increasing steadily through the decades.
The first half-a-million mark was achieved in 2001, with 508,946 candidates taking the exams.
In 2018, the country registered 1 million pupils for the exams, which closed that chapter of KCPE with a record 1.4 million candidates who sat and received their results in 2023.
The last cohort of the system will sit the final Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams in 2027.
