Education

Judges dismiss petition against CBC, citing children welfare concerns

Court gavel. (Photo: EV)

By Joseph Ndunda | Friday, June 21, 2024

They dismissed the arguments by lawyer Nelson Havi that there was no public input due to a lack of public participation.

A three-judge bench on Thursday dismissed a petition challenging the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC), which replaced the 8-4-4 education system.

A three-judge bench said that based on the interest of the children, granting the orders sought to stop the implementation of the curriculum would cause disorder in the education system.

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In their decision, justices Hedwig Ongundi, John Chingiti and Antony Ndung'u said that the rights of the children would be offended by the orders sought by the petitioners.

The petitioners argued that there was no public participation before the curriculum change.

But the three said there was serious engagement including the education system.

Others included in the process are faith-based organisations, the public and key stakeholders and therefore, the judges said, the process achieved the legal requirements of public participation.

They dismissed the arguments by lawyer Nelson Havi that there was no public input due to a lack of public participation.

"The best interest of the child is paramount consideration a court must do everything to preserve the rights of the minor," they ruled.

The judges also said that scrapping CBC will lead to loss of job employment and wastage of public and taxpayers money that has already been used in rolling out the CBC.

"What will be the results of nullifying the CBC? Will it be in the best interest of the child to make him forget what he has learnt to learn something else?" they posed.

Similarly, the court said that the best interest of a child shall be the primary consideration. They said it is evident that CBC has been rolled and over eight million children are in the program.

The three judges also pointed out that there are teaching materials prepared, classrooms built for the same and budgetary allocation for the education.

The petitioners had argued the curriculum exposes children to child labour but the judges said that there's no evidence that CBC recruits children to child labour, adding that the shift to CBC is necessary to ensure learners are imparted with skills.