Using GIS in Mapping and Evaluating the High School Infrastructure in Readiness for the Implementation of the New Curriculum. Case Study: Ugunja Sub-County, Siaya County

Abstract

The Ministry of Education has intended to introduce a competency-based curriculum from the onset of 2018. This will be gradually carried out from the primary school level to senior school. However, the studies that have been carried out have been on application of GIS in education planning but there has been no much study to evaluate the infrastructural readiness for the schools in Ugunja sub-county to assess their readiness to implement the new competency based curriculum. The research has considered prerequisite infrastructure such as class size, computer laboratories and quality indicators like student teacher ratio and teachers ICT skill set for implementation of the new curriculum in this area. Some of the methods employed included desktop study, questionnaire surveys, and the application of Geographical Information System (GIS) to collect the spatial and attribute data. The results have shown that none of the schools is ready to implement the new curriculum but those with the ratings of 2 and 3 can be improved for successful rolling out of the STEM pathway of this curriculum, while those with the ratings of 1 designed for the remaining Social sciences, Art and Sports.