The role of Humanism in Curriculum Review in Kenya - Essential Lesson the Famed CBC May have Missed.

CBC Failure may have started During Conceptualization - What Needs Assessment Missed.

Attainment of holistic learning experiences for students in Kenya requires an approach that views learning beyond the bounds of rationality. The long-standing view of quality education in terms of students′ academic excellence in Kenya needs an urgent rethink. Quality education must not only be viewed as an individual′s cognitive achievement but also as their growth in the social and behavioral aspects.

Even though the teacher-centered instructional methods practiced in Kenya may lead to better grades for the rote learners and land them in prestigious careers, their societal and economic importance will never be as advanced as their cognitive abilities. The managerial curricula rarely, therefore, consider the higher-level needs of the learners including self-actualization as well as the psycho-social needs (Ornstein & Hunkins, 1993).

Kobiah (2016) identifies poor involvement of teachers in needs assessment and curriculum development as well as the top-down management model applied by the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development as major contributing factors to the “machine theory” (Ornstein & Hunkins, 1993, p. 2) view to education in Kenya. Learners trained through the ′machine theory′ model could be highly qualified factory operators or health professionals but lack the basic knowledge of co-existing with the immediate social environment. The curricula ideally trained individuals for the industrial and pre-industrial paradigms and not so much in readiness for the highly dynamic Network Age.

Worse still, the academically not-so-gifted lot of students end up dropping out of school too early and will most likely end up as deviants of society. The best approach to curriculum development in Kenya should be the humanistic approach.

Student and teacher engagement in the development of the curriculum should be the most important stage of the curriculum development process (Ornstein & Hunkins, 1993). As such KICD should decentralize the curriculum process and bridge the bureaucratic gaps to allow the users of the curriculum (teachers and students) to be more involved in its construction (Kobiah, 2016).

Teachers’ role in the curriculum process in the Kenyan current managerial approach comes at the terminal end (implementation) and as such, they feel a lack of ′ownership to the curriculum′ (Kobiah, 2016 p. 54). This must be changed to ensure the consumers of the curriculum acquire closer control and responsibility for the product (curriculum).

Teacher workshops, seminars, and school committees are some of the practical ways – proposed by Malebye (1999) – that may be employed by KICD to actively involve ALL the teachers AND PARENTS in curriculum development and thus recognize their major role in the entire development process – from the very beginning.

However, humanism requires curriculum experts to extend such holistic needs assessment processes to include more robust methodologies such as close observation and immersion approaches into the teachers' contexts. Such methodologies shall seek to understand the teachers' interests, readiness and proclivities to learn and adopt new and futuristic learning models.