A teacher in Laikipia County is making headlines for a model classroom for Early Childhood Development and Education (ECDE).
Mount Kenya University (MKU) student Dorcas Wangui Wamuyu has created a model Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) classroom at Manguo Primary School near Nyahururu town, giving young learners a chance to experience real-life situations — right inside the classroom.
The building looks like an ordinary classroom from the outside, but once you step inside and you’ll find a world of discovery for children.
Teacher Dorcas has set up what she calls a one-stop hub — complete with spaces for meals, houses, shopping malls, nutrition and even a numbers corner.
Imagine a child in rural Kenya learning how to use an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) card, an electronic device used in financial transactions in banking outlets where customers cash withdrawals, deposits and balance checks. It may sound like a dream, but here, it’s part of the lesson plan.
“All that you see here is a result of the quality learning I have gained at MKU. The lecturers there encourage us to think beyond the classroom and bring real solutions that make learning better,” Dorcas says.
Her creativity has impressed the Laikipia County Government Ward ECDE Coordinator and Dorcas boss, Madam Rahab Njaramba, who says the model classroom is both fun and informative — and a model for the future.
“Children enjoy learning here because the environment is very engaging. They see, they touch, and they learn,” she said.
ECDE refers to a specialized field of education and care focused on the development of young children, typically from birth to age eight, to prepare them for primary school. It encompasses a range of learning activities that support cognitive, physical, social, and emotional growth in an organized setting outside the family.
Njaramba said the ECDE teachers in the ward are now using Manguo Primary and Dorcas’ class for bench marking. “We recently held a materials development day for all teachers in the ward here.
The other nursery schools are not as good as this one, but they are coming up,” she said.
She has been excepotyuonal in materails development, so wbrought others here
The County is now considering rolling out similar CBC classrooms, with Teacher Dorcas expected to train others on her approach. Dorcas says MKU has a lot of potential in empowering teachers from ECDE through primary and secondary schools to university.
“They have inspired me, opened up my mind, taught me how to think outside the box,” Dorcas said.
Dr Boniface Kamau, who heads Special needs and ECDE at MKU based in Thika town said he was touring the school to observe how a modern ECDE classroom teaching should look like. “You can see she is bringing creativity in teaching the various activities to the children,” he noted.
Dr Kamau said Dorcas’ creativity is promoting critical thinking, a crucial pillar of CBC learning.
“The team work she is inculcating in the children will help do away with individualism, which will then bring out the talents of the children. We want to cascade such practical learning skills from ECDE through Grade 1 to Senior Secondary Schools to university,” he added.
Igwamiti Ward
Isil Aden, who is in charge of ECDE in Laikipia County, said what is being showcased at Manguo Primary is a creation of ECDE teachers. She said the county has 450 ECDE centres, many of them already copying and benchmarking what is being done at Manguo Primary by Teacher Dorcas.
In Kenya, the official transition from the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) to Competency-Based Education (CBE) occurred in April 2024, not as a mere rebranding but as a comprehensive upgrade of the education system.
While CBC focused primarily on the curriculum framework, CBE expands to encompass the entire system, including pedagogy, assessment, infrastructure, and teacher training, with a broader goal of fostering real-world skills and mastery for learners from pre-primary to higher education.
