A Strategic Design Approach to Delivering a Competency-Based Art Education in Kenya

Abstract

There is a rift between what the new competency-based curriculum for primary and secondary education in Kenya offers and the professional preparation teachers are currently getting to enable them deliver on their mandate. Considering that the curriculum design has adopted a competency-based curriculum perspective, among a host of many other paradigm shifts, capacity building of teachers on interpretation and implementation of the reformed curriculum is of
utmost importance. However, a huge gap exists between the teacher’s preparation and expectation on service delivery. This drawback has not only major implications on the quality of educational provision but also on the teacher’s obligations to the stated policies and regulations. The government and
research agencies have confirmed that these drawbacks exist and recommended that training reforms be instituted to raise teacher specialization levels. In the case of art education in primary schools, it is important to better understand how these training reforms can be instituted given the limited resources and a short roll-out time. In answer to this need, the researcher’s main objective was to co-design a strategic approach to delivering art education training in public universities in Kenya. This paper uses a qualitative, case study method to offer a strategic approach to delivering a competency-based art curriculum. The proposed strategic framework is drawn from: literature on theories of competency-based education, and educational reforms in Kenya; interactions with
teacher trainees and education experts; as well as from a co-design workshop with relevant stakeholders.