The Teachers Voice and Ownership in Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) in Kenya: Application of Bernstein’s Theory

Abstract

Curriculum development is a planned, purposeful, progressive, and systematic process necessary to improve an education system. Changing a curriculum to address societal needs cannot be overemphasized. Every time there are changes or developments happening around the world, the school curricula is affected. However, teachers are mostly left out during this important exercise. They are in most instances incorporated during the implementation stage of curriculum development. Teachers have a key role in all the processes of curriculum change and development and most importantly during curriculum implementation. Bernstein Theory of Pedagogic Discourse encapsulates the teacher’s role in the curriculum development process. The Theory postulates that constructing a pedagogic discourse requires three inter-related rules of distributive, recontextualizing and evaluative activities. These rules are hierarchically related such that one cannot exist without the other. The teacher is able to collate various information from various groups which leads to orienting the curriculum with meaning. The teacher is also able to recontextualize expert information by simplifying and refocusing given content. Finally, the teacher evaluates the activities and gives feedback for improvement and sustainability of the curriculum. The knowledge generated by experts from different fields is encoded in highly complex symbolic forms that must be decoded and translated into pedagogies that are accessible by the learners and non-specialists: this can only be done by a teacher. The new curriculum in Kenya ought to have embraced Bernstein’s theory during its development. The teacher’s role was not clearly defined in the development of Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) in Kenya. This has resulted in various challenges in its implementation right from the onset. This is because the teachers were only involved during the implementation stage, which is the last step of the curriculum development process. This raises the question why were they not included in all the curriculum development stages? Teachers have complained of lack of involvement, poorly rolled out training, inadequate resources, and lack of understanding of the curriculum. This is a challenge in the implementation and sustainability of CBC. This article therefore is a meta-analysis that focuses on the application of Bernstein’s theory during the changeover of the current Competency Based Curriculum from the 8-4-4 curriculum in Kenya.