TEACHERS’ PREPAREDNESS AND ITS EFFECT ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF COMPETENCY-BASED CURRICULUM IN PUBLIC PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN TAITA TAVETA COUNTY, KENYA
TEACHERS’ PREPAREDNESS AND ITS EFFECT ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF COMPETENCY-BASED CURRICULUM IN PUBLIC PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN TAITA TAVETA COUNTY, KENYA
Jacinta Mwende Muthoka - Student, Master of Education (Educational Administration), Kenyatta University, Kenya
Dr. Daniel Mange Mbirithi - Department of Educational Management, Policy and Curriculum Studies, Kenyatta University, Kenya
ABSTRACT
Teachers’ preparedness noticeably dictates how effectively a curriculum is implemented. The resolve of this study was to establish teachers’ level of preparedness and how this affects the implementation of the competency- based curriculum (CBC) in public primary schools in Taita sub-county Taita Taveta County, Kenya. The present study was steered by the stated objectives, namely to: determine teachers’ preparedness to effectively include core competencies when lesson planning; establish teachers’ preparedness to employ learner-centered teaching methods and skills; evaluate teachers’ preparedness to effectively implement digital learning integration; and establish teachers’ preparedness to implement formative assessment in line with CBC. According to Gross’s 1971 Curriculum Implementation Theory, a teacher must be fully prepared for any curriculum reform to succeed at implementation stage. The descriptive survey research design was employed to guide this study. The target population for this study comprised 50 head teachers and 344 handling grades 1 to 6 in the 50 public primary schools in the sub-county. Simple random sampling technique was used to obtain a sample of 24 head teachers and 105 teachers who participated in this study using Taro Yamane’s formula. Qualitative data were obtained by interviewing the head teachers while quantitative data were obtained from teachers who filled the questionnaires. Qualitative data from interviews with head teachers and open-ended questionnaire items were analyzed thematically by grouping the data into major themes as per the objectives and variables, and then presented in form of narrations. Quantitative data were analyzed using measures of frequency with the help of SPSS Version 24 to obtain descriptive statistics, and then presented in the form of frequency tabulations, graphs and percentages. From the research findings, this study concludes that the level of teachers’ preparedness has a bearing on the effective implementation of the competency-based curriculum in public primary schools in Taita Sub-County, Taita Taveta County. The findings obtained from the research might be useful to education policymakers, scholars and various education stakeholders including KICD, MOE, and TSC in making decisions geared towards improved implementation of the competency-based curriculum in primary schools in Kenya.
