Continuous Teacher Professional Support for Effective Implementation of Basic Education Curriculum Framework

Continuing teacher professional support in curriculum implementation is critical in Kenya following the development of the Basic Education Curriculum Framework (KICD, 2017). The new curriculum is competency-based and emphasizes inquiry learning approaches. The 8- 4-4 curriculum which it is planned to replace had been implemented mostly applying transmission approach and children were reported to be attending primary school and not learning (KNEC, 2010 & UWEZO, 2013). Teacher quality determines the quality of curriculum implementation and one means of ensuring teacher quality is by making continuing teacher professional development available for teachers. The objective of this study was to determine teacher preparedness for the implementation of the new curriculum and whether there was any established continuing teacher professional development programme for sustained teacher quality. The study sought to find out whether the pre-service and in-service training prepared teachers adequately for implementation of the new curriculum; whether teachers had adequate teaching-learning resources and whether they had any existing continuing teacher professional development programme. The Pedagogic Content Knowledge (CPK) model by Desimone (2009) guided this study. A case study was conducted in a public primary school in Narok County. The School was selected because it was used to pilot the new competency-based curriculum. It has 500 pupils and 15 teachers. All the 15 teachers in the school participated in this study. Data was collected using a questionnaire. Most 13(86.7%) of the teachers agreed that the pre-service and in-service courses did not prepare them adequately to implement the new curriculum. Another 12(80%) of the teachers did not have enough pupils and teaches' books; while 11(73%) did not know how to extract teaching materials from other sources besides class textbooks. However, about 7(46.6%) used a laptop to teach, and 9(60%) used a cell phone to create learning activities. All the 15 (100%) teachers agreed that continuing professional development programme was not established. Another 10(66%) agreed that they needed professional development programme and preferred distance learning mode. Teachers were not adequately prepared for Implementation of the new curriculum. It was recommended that teachers need to be provided with technology supported, continuous distance learning professional development programme for curriculum implementation incorporating inquiry teaching approaches. Online Open Educational Resources would also cater for inadequate teaching-learning resources.