Influence of Teacher Preparedness on Implementation of the Competency Based Curriculum in Public Primary Schools in Kikuyu Sub - County, Kiambu County

Abstract

The transition from the 8-4-4 system of education to the Competency-Based Curriculum has put tremendous strain on Kenya's educational stakeholders. While government representatives like the Ministry of Education frequently claim that the country is prepared to execute the new curriculum, other stakeholders like teachers and parents don't seem to share this opinion. The degree to which instructors are prepared to successfully apply the new curriculum is one of the main problems that frequently dominates the discussion about curriculum implementation. Such discussions raise the topic of how much teacher preparation can affect how the curriculum is implemented effectively, as it did in the current study. The current study therefore set out to accomplish four specific goals, namely to determine how teachers' pedagogical content knowledge, their ability to integrate ICT during instruction, and their perceptions of the preparation affect the implementation of CBC in public primary schools in Kikuyu Sub-County, Kiambu County. The research was done among 132 teachers of grade 6 and head teachers from 28 public primary schools in Kiambu County using a descriptive survey design. The data was gathered using semi-structured questionnaires, interviews, and observation lists, and was then quantitatively evaluated using means, percentages, standard deviation, and Pearson Correlation. To examine the qualitative information from the interview sessions, content analysis was used. While it was determined that all facets of teachers' ability to comprehend and apply concepts from curriculum design have a positive and statistically significant impact on CBC implementation, teachers' skill at integrating various competencies into lessons had the greatest impact in terms of pedagogical content knowledge on the CBC's successful implementation. The two components of ICT integration that had a statistically significant impact on the efficient implementation of the CBC were instructors' integration of ICT learning across all learning domains and the availability of suitable infrastructure. According to the instructors, CBC is generally good, but more plans need to be done to guarantee that the teachers are well prepared and that the schools are better equipped with the necessary resources. Based on these findings, the study provided four suggestions to the key players in the education sector, including the requirement that the government provide an adequate quantity and quality of all pertinent resources to support efficient implementation