Kenya Institute of Education (KIE)

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KIE's Mandate and Services

Role of curriculum

Curriculum refers to all educational experiences prepared and planned by the school or a learning institution and offered to learners in order to modify their behavior and encourage them to achieve holistic development. Curriculum development is the process of providing the plan and keeping it running smoothly, which includes planning, design, implementation and evaluation.
The process of curriculum development is participatory and inclusive. The process involves the following stages:

Needs assessment
Subjects panels
Course panel
Academic Committee
Stakeholders conferences

Education is informed by curricula. There is empirical evidence that economic development has a correlation with education at both individual and national level.
KIE validates all the curriculum support materials prepared by private publishers for use in schools and other learning institutions, ensures availability of support materials in specific areas e.g. Sign language, foreign languages and Mother tongue. Thus the Institute is a Publisher of last resort in areas where private sector has shown no interest. In publishing materials such as in Special Needs Education, Non Formal Education, Technical Industrial Vocational Education and Training (TIVET) and Cross Cutting Issues.

KIE develops curriculum for the following programme areas;

Early Childhood Care, development and education
Primary Education
Secondary Education
Adult, Continuing and Non Formal education
Teacher Education and Training
Special Education
Tertiary Education and Training

The Institute continuously monitors the curriculum implementation process.

Curriculum Support materials

The Institute has three Materials Development sections namely: Languages, Sciences and Humanities, which develops syllabuses and handbooks.
The Institute also develops and provides quality curriculum support materials for effective curriculum delivery. It also enhances equity and access to curriculum support materials through various formats including radio and television educational channel.

The Institute has developed digital content in the following twelve (12) subjects in Form 1 and 2packaged in DVDs:

1. Mathematics             7. Agriculture
2. English                     8. Home science
3. Kiswahili                    9. Computer Studies
4. Chemistry                10. Business Studies
5. Physics                    11. Geography
6. Biology                     12. History and Government

The Institute has currently embarked on the development of form 3 and 4 content simultaneously.

Orientation of curriculum implementers

The Institute undertakes orientation of curriculum implementers on new, revised and adapted curriculum at all levels. This is done through seminars and workshops for education stakeholders. The Institute also facilitates timely in-service training of curriculum implementers for curriculum implementers. The face to face orientation is supplemented by a new online orientation system. So far, the Institute has developed eight (8) online teacher orientation modules have been developed for in-service of teacher on the curriculum implementation in different subjects.
The Institute also develops curriculum for post-secondary institutions as well as professional and competency based curriculum for organizations. This is mainly done through consultancy based under TIVET. The aim is to develop pragmatically important components of a national training system that entails “those aspects of educational process involving, in addition to general education, the study of technologies and related sciences, and the acquisition of knowledge, practical skills, and attitudes relating to occupations in various sectors of economic and social life.
The main functions of TIVET are to develop suitable TIVET curriculum and curriculum support materials in response to the needs of the industry in the following areas;