County Introduces plan to identify talents among pupils at Early Stage
Director of quality standards and Early Childhood Development ECD services Bwanaheri Abdulrahman addressing journalists at the third ECD annual event. Image courtesy
By The COAST Newspaper Team
County government of Mombasa has embarked on a plan to identify and develop talents amongst pupils at childhood stage.
The plan which also seeks to nature the talents at early stages intends to bring together children from different institutions to showcase their talents once in a year.
Director of quality standards and Early Childhood Development ECD services Bwanaheri Abdulrahman says the plan has been going on in Mombasa for the past few years.
Speaking at the sidelines of the third annual ECD event held at Chandaria Hall at the Kenya Coast National Polytechnic the director said this activity is to uplift the children’s talents.
On the newly introduced curriculum he said both pupils and teachers have embraced it urging teachers to fully exploit talents amongst junior learners.
“ECD plays a crucial role as far as education of junior learners is concerned and the county is committed in enhancing ECD’s” the Director added.
He added that the exercise is not done at random but through assessment of the CBC and aligning children to the new curriculum.
The director noted that the county has invested in model schools that include Digirikani, Utange, Buxton, Longo and Kadzandani among others to inspire and encourage pupils to work hard in school.
“The new curriculum seeks to enable learners communicate fluently and develop critical and imaginative thinking” he said
Meanwhile the Mombasa county ECD Education and Library director Mwangi Gichuhi says unlike the previous education system where teachers took a leading role, CBC is vice versa where learners take a leading role.
He however stressed the need for teachers to identify talents among learners.
“As per the new curriculum children take a leading role as far as education is concerned though learning equipment still remains a challenge in the implementation of CBC” he said.
According to him the county government has trained over ECD 3,000 teachers to fill in the gap.
“Walimu waliona kwamba ni kama wameharakishwa. Lakini tulitia bidiia tuone kama tunaweza kuwafundisha” Teachers thought that CBC had been rushed but we worked hard to see that all teachers were fully trained to handle pupils”
He noted that the county government has injected over ksh 50 million in the 2019/20 financial year in all public ECD schools as part of its strategy to scale up the new curriculum.
Mombasa county Kenya Private Schools Association chair Omar Mbuli lauded the county for what he termed as commitment in the administration of ECD services.
According to him KEPSA fully supports the new curriculum.
