President William Ruto has come out strongly to defend Competency Based Education (CBE) even as stakeholders say there is need for clarity interms of transition.

CBC replaced the old 8-4-4 system with first cohort set to enter university in 2029.

While the new system was a step necessary for helping learners gain practical skills and shift away from “memorization”, it has since attracted deep criticism.

But Dr. Ruto assures stakeholders that the new education system will work and its end game realised.

“We hired 100,000 teachers, built 23,000 classrooms, fixed CBC, and established a new funding model. Now, a child’s education will no longer depend on their parents’ ability to pay, but on the child’s own ability to learn,” he says.

Education CS Migos Ogamba supports the head of state saying that Grade 10 CBE learner and a Form Two 8-4-4 learner are notably different.

“CBE is a very good system. Those joining university in 2029 will be very different—prepare for them; they will argue and debate with you,” he said.

A new system becomes economically meaningful only when, in the long run, it connects learners to productive activities, markets, factories, farms and big tech opportunities.

CBC can become a monument financed by taxes and borrowing while parents and learners remain where they were at the end of it all. Cases where graduates are broke or unemployed, not able to pay school fees, afford meals, or meet medical bills are familiar.

The Ministry of Education has since streamlined CBC to CBE while university education prepares for major reforms under the proposed Competency Based Framework for higher learning.

Such a system has worked in South Korea, which invested in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education and became a tec powerhouse.

The head of State, during his Nyanza visit last week also talked about reforms in university funding.

He said government had committed 53 percent towards university funding. Dr. Ruto said trends have shown that “differentiated” model of funding wasn’t working. That is why a “student-centered” university education model would be a game changer.

He stressed that the system will end the current challenges and bring equality (where the learner from a rich background and a poor one), or a mama mboga, a top corporate executive, and the President, eventually become equal through education.

In 2023, government introduced Student-Centred funding model to replace the “Differentiated Unit Cost” system that catagorises students into five bands based on household income and assessed financial need.

There are still educational challenges. But Dr. Ruto sees a bright future ahead.