True education should have identity, purpose, and contribution. A new year invites reflection not on how fast Kenya reforms its curriculum, but on how intentionally learners grow as human beings within those reforms.
As the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) continues to reshape our basic education and universities rethink their value proposition, an uncomfortable truth remains: some of the most meaningful learning in Kenya still happens far from exam rooms, scheme-of-work files, and official lesson plans. It happens in the shamba, in family businesses, in madrassas and Sunday schools, in youth groups, tech hubs, TVET workshops, and community initiatives where young people take responsibility before they feel completely ready.
This moment demands an education system that honours experience as much as content, and character as much as competence. Our national vision speaks of engaged, empowered, and ethical citizens, yet too many learners still experience schooling as a race for grades, certificates, and “marketable” courses rather than a journey of discovering who they are, what they value, and how they can serve.
Why Kenyan education must go beyond coverage
Formal schooling remains vital; it has opened doors for millions of Kenyan children and youth. But research on graduate employability reveals a persistent gap: employers repeatedly note that many graduates lack problem-solving ability, communication, teamwork, and self-leadership, even when they hold strong academic transcripts. These are precisely the capacities that cannot be crammed for an exam; they are formed through lived experience, reflection, and purposeful guidance.
Kenya’s CBC attempts to respond through seven core competencies communication and collaboration, critical thinking and problem solving, imagination and creativity, citizenship, learning to learn, self-efficacy, and digital literacy. However, in many schools CBC is still implemented as “8-4-4 with activities”: schemes change, books change, but the deeper mindset remains exam-centred and teacher-driven. True reform will require a shift from “What content did we cover?” to “Who is this learner becoming?” in every classroom, staff meeting, and policy document.
Rooting learning in Kenyan realities
Education without identity produces graduates who know the world but do not know themselves or their communities. Kenya’s policy frameworks emphasise holistic, value-based education grounded in African heritage and national values like love, responsibility, respect, unity, peace, patriotism, social justice, and integrity. Yet in practice, many learners can recite European rivers more easily than they can interpret their own county’s development priorities or map opportunities in their local economy.
A Kenyan education with identity would:
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- Place local languages, histories, and cultures alongside global content, treating them as sources of wisdom, not obstacles to “modernity”.
- Integrate real community projects into assessment such as climate-smart agriculture, digital entrepreneurship, or neighbourhood health campaigns so learners see themselves as problem-solvers where they live.
- Help young people critically examine media, technology, and globalization so they can adopt what builds them and resist what erodes their dignity.
When learners understand where they come from, they can engage the world confidently, not as passive consumers of imported ideas, but as creative contributors from Kenya to the globe.
Dr. Yusuf Muchelule is a Senior Lecturer & a Consultant
