Curriculum implementation : a study in two secondary schools in Kenya

This item was digitized as part of a project to share McGill's intellectual legacy with the public. If you are the copyright holder or a relative of the copyright holder who is deceased, you may request withdrawal by emailing escholarship.library@mcgill.ca. The full policy for eScholarship may be accessed here: mcgill.ca The purpose of this study was to investigate how the biological science curriculum was being implemented at the secondary school level in Kenya under the 8-4-4 system of education. In this study, the case method was used to investigate implementation in two secondary schools in Baringo district, Kenya. Data were collected using observation, interviews, questionnaires, and audio recordings. Implementation standards were found to be rather low because of a number of factors. The general laboratories in the two schools of the study were poorly equipped, and textbooks available to students were too few. Moreover, the textbooks were reported as being shallow and sketchy. In addition, the content of some topics was too difficult especially at the lower secondary (Forms I and II) level. The syllabus was also too wide for satisfactory coverage in the four-year duration of secondary education. An additional problem found was that there were no inservice courses for the biology teachers. It was also found that the head teachers played a limited role as instructional supervisors because most of their time was spent on administrative duties.