Is the content of the Kenyan curriculum in our schools and universities relevant for the job market and current practice?
Is the School Curriculum Content Relevant for the Job Market?
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Is the content of the Kenyan curriculum in our schools and universities relevant for the job market and current practice?
Buk'ki Duanne
In my opinion I believe the curriculum is a long way from being relevant if ever. At worst it’s totally defunct. The focus has always been on grilling and teaching students to memorize and remember information rather than understand the information’ It’s an exam based learning system where you’re graded on how close you can come to quoting the textbook. There literally is no practicality in it and there’s even less flexibility. It’s becoming ever ingrained in students that the purpose of education is to give you better odds at getting a job and that’s what they stick to. This is why you get a good chunk of them staying home after graduating even though there’s a plethora of things they could do in their field of expertise or other fields if they sent themselves out there and focused on creating their own employment.
The curriculum stopped being relevent, if ever it was, and now became a formality. I mean, when you want to get a job your skills come second to your level of education.
It actually teaches what to think about and when to think about it. It’s programming the learners to a certain way of of life that is not really true.
Basically, it’s not giving new skills to the market but just different faces.
Wanjeri Thea
How come it is working well forbid some people while other don’t get its use? Is there some secret code we are missing?
I would say the Kenyan education system is like teaching fish to climb trees..I have been an avid student in our system with nothing but positive thinking and attitude but I still felt like I was never given the platform to be myself, and its the same case with most, if not all students. Education should be fun and enjoyable. We get to be taught so much theories about things and topics that mostly become of no use when we grow up and become adults. We need more practicality in life issues, for instance, as a topic of education. As far as the job market is concerned, there is never space for a beginner. They always want a properly experience person. Its a market that benefits the elite far more than the common mwananchi. Its high time we think big and aim to be employers, not mere workers our entire lives! I wish to see 21 year old CEOs.
In my opinion, both the education system and the job market in Kenya are flawed, and the flaws of the education system can be attributed to those of the employment sector and vice versa. Kenyan schools drill students to be employees. They hold the courses that require the highest qualifications to join to the highest regard. As a result, all the student are programmed to be “doctors”, “engineers” and “lawyers” regardless of their passions, innate interests and talents. If more emphasis were placed on innovation and entrepreneurship, the landscape of the job market would probably be different, and so would the education system. But then again, issues such as corruption, inaccessibility of resources, lack of capital, and sheer ignorance significantly hamper innovation and entrepreneurship. Until these issues are solved, thousands of graduates will continue to depend on the few capable individuals or organizations for employment, and schools will continue to drill the students towards the same.
Daniel Kamau
Also i think the problem is the mindset set up of our upbringing, we grow up been tought education is the Key of Life and thats not true
The system is relevant.
The problem is age and levels of qualifications.
Chris Mukasa
What makes it relevant when we have 1st class graduates tarmaking? ?
dicksongitauhi
Its not the curriculum,the critical issue is because of the executives and people who don’t want to nature and appreciate new ideas and minds in the job sector.People sit for jobs until they die,retirement for some is just a phrase of letters.
Ian James Mwai Kinyua
I think not. I have personally studied probability 1 to probability 5 and got nothing all through and also used it no where in my job. We need change in our education system!!
Daisy Mwikali
What in particular would you change if you had the authority?
Joshua Mwangi
Hell no.
Daisy Mwikali
What’s your reason?
I would say the system is 30%effective and 70%defective in the essence that that it does pass some vital information while at the same time it still serves as a stumbling block of the person you want to be.
Onyango Otieno
The unemployment rate tells you something is wrong with the system. It seems to only benefit a few. Who are mostly the elite. The ones with favourable opportunities to grow and get exposed to alternative learning methods outside what they’re taught in class. But it’s not just the education system that affects the job market. It’s the general health of a country. i.e, political goodwill and stability, government policies, health of taxation, justice system, healthcare system, etc. We should start looking at the job market as an entity that depends on many other sectors outside the school curriculum. Such that when we fix the curriculum, the other market players can also be tightened to support a healthier labour force.
No ..Many kenyan educational institutions teach students what is not required in the job market and leave out the critical skills required
Joseph Seedwell Ngugi
The content of the curriculum has potential to build massive economic and social capacity but the end goals and the configuration of this same curriculum defeats the former. No wonder despite the many graduates in the agricultural sector that we have in Kenya, food security is still a national problem.
Chris Mukasa
The entire Educational System is Defective! People’s thoughts have gradually been shaped into a rigid collective consciousness that discourages flexibility in thought and difference of opinion.
The defective education system contributes to this by selectively transferring approved versions of culture and history. Teaching methods and contents have not been tailored to meet the needs of current socioeconomic realities.
Schools have a universal design just like conveyor belts in a factory, regardless of varying individual needs. This results in the increase in unemployment among university graduates in many African countries.
Unemployment has become a top political priority in Africa and can arguably be considered to be at the root of the 2012 Arab Spring uprisings.
The Kenyan Education system is ineffective at best. The homogeneity in the delivery of education in Kenya does not accommodate the different skills and talents of Kenyan students. Students spend the best part of their early years stuffing their brains with endless ‘knowledge’ they may never need or use.
What the Kenyan education system has achieved is training students on how to read and answer of exams. It is not skill based and hence does less to equip students with necessary and relevant skills tailored for our Industrial need. A complete overhaul of the system needs to happen!
Manser Thelua
The education curriculum is designed to make you fail in life if you think out of the norm. However, for people who follow set paths to the letter, it can be beneficial.
The curriculum stop to be relevant when 8-4-4 was introduced. Critical thinking ended. sycophancy started. Looting germinated. corruption was born. The rest is history.
Stephen Teng'o
Yes and no. Yes because it becomes useful to those who aspire to work in the Kenyan job market’s different industries only and no because it micromanages the capacity of those who aspire to work beyond the Kenyan workplace scope into international arenas. So as other benefit, others don’t and vice versa.
Bravin Yuri
I don’t think the Content actually equips the students for job opportunities. Basically most of the students study to Pass an exam. We have a more theoretical education system than practical yet the job market requires people who are more practical than theoretical.
On the other hand, the education system in Kenya for example trains you to be an employee rather than an employer. That’s where unemployment problems come in.
Daniel Kamau
Great question but there are some inbalances and the reason is technology and innovation is taking space in our minds .Also value system of self discpline is not tought and this affects the mind set of the pupils .
Edell Indiasi
No.. We are taught a lot of irrelevant stuff in campus
Koo Letta
Current one yes. The previous one nop
#VIHIGA'S FINEST
Just a thought of it. Its treason
Phanice Wamukota
I thought the new curriculum is designed to make it easier for this to happen?! I am yet to look into it properly but I would say stakeholders did out this into consideration.
Willis
Yes it is
Ian James Mwai Kinyua
Wait until your skills are not relevant in the job market.
Personally from my experience of education in the UK the curriculum had a lot to do with the job market because our education system is a tool for middle class hegemony. The education system here does more to teach working class children how to be good employees than it does to give them access to social mobility via skills and resources . So I wonder if African countries adopting western education systems havnt condemned their young people to class immobility.
Honestly speaking the school for my country Ghana to be precise is not really helping ,all we do is study to pass…we basically learn a lot of unnecessary things but it all boils down to your choice are you ready. For the job market? That is why the internet has been made so I guess this is what makes us advantageous
Tee Nine
Yes & no so this means it can’t be 100% relevant to the job market because when u get to the public market u need to be create and also remember whenever u get a new job u will go through a training just that a bit of the school curriculum will be need in there, & it will be like that.
Korrjorr Jeng
I’m not quite familiar with the Kenyan curriculum but I do know that many African countries, The Gambia included still practice the colonialists’ system of education which in itself is exclusive to the African workforce requirements. This curriculum only provides less than 25% of the yearly graduates with relevant jobs and that is where the problem is.
What we need is the form of education that suits our environment and workforce.
Wanjeri Thea
The problem is not the curriculum, it is the teachers.
Koo Letta
The teachers follow the curriculum failure to which they are might be charged with teaching out of content.
How is the teacher the problem when the education is static in terms of content?
Robert Mũnũku
The short answer is no.
Joshua Keter
depends which career.