Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Migos has announced that Mathematics will be a compulsory subject at the senior school level, rescinding on the government’s past declaration to make it optional.
Speaking during the National Conversation on the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) on Thursday, CS Migos said that the decision was made after a majority of stakeholders during a series of CBC dialogues wanted mathematics as a subject in senior school.
This means that students who will choose the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) field will study advanced Math and students who will choose the other two pathways will study simplified Math.
“Some form of mathematics [will] be made compulsory for the two pathways that are not the STEM pathways. We have STEM having pure maths and the other two having a form of maths,” he said, adding that further talks were held with the Kenyan Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD).
This comes after the Ministry of Education announced that Maths will no longer be compulsory for senior secondary learners under the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC), marking a drastic shift from the phased-out 8-4-4 system.
In the new system, students will take four compulsory subjects, namely; English or Kenya Sign Language, Kiswahili, Physical Education, and Community Service Learning. They will then choose three other subjects from a pool of 38 options.
The move was met with strong opposition from the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET), as its acting Secretary General Moses Nthurima said making Mathematics optional would be detrimental to students’ academic and professional futures.
“KUPPET rejects the government’s proposal to make Mathematics an optional subject at the senior school level,” he stated.
“Maths is an essential subject for building a competent workforce for the 21st Century. Indeed, Maths also has a wide application in the learning of all other areas including humanities, sports and of course STEM.”
