Epistemic and social injustices in English as a medium of instruction in Kenya’s Competency Based Curriculum: A critical textual analysis

Abstract

This study set out to explore how epistemic and social injustices are represented in Kenya’s Competency Based Curriculum (CBC). CBC is majorly English medium (EMI) based though Kiswahili and indigenous languages are formally designated to be the media of instruction in pre-school and lower primary school levels. The study hypothesises that over-reliance on foreign languages like English in pedagogical instruction, material design, assessment, administration and communication could be problematic to stakeholders like learners, teachers and parents.

Therefore, it sought to investigate the policy positions on EMI in Kenya’s CBC and how they could cause epistemic and social injustices in Kenya’s basic education system. It did so by attempting to: establish how the agency of CBC stakeholders is represented; explore the roles of English and Kenyan languages in the curriculum; and analyse the potential EMI-related injustices in relation to CBC stakeholder agency and language-education policies and how they could be remedied.

The study adopted the tools of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to collect and analyse data from Basic Education Curriculum Framework (BECF) which is the key text that entails CBC policies. Recursive readings of the text aided by the support of Adobe Acrobat Reader AI Assistant enabled the selection of specific clauses on the stakeholders and the languages illustrated in the text. This was followed by a transitivity analysis of selected clauses on ChatGPT.com and the results presented on tables in MS-Word formats.

Overall, the study found out that CBC EMI policies and practices are based on a highly hierarchical and bureaucratic structure with governmental institutions and officials at the top. It also established that CBC values languages according to the perception of their instrumentally, hence English dominates in the curriculum because of its attachment to socio-economic progress. Both these positions expose learners, teachers and parents to diverse forms of epistemic and social injustices.

The study hence concludes that the current CBC EMI framework is highly embedded with systemic (epistemic and social) injustices which could only be addressed through gradual and consistent deconstruction of the representation of stakeholders and the role of languages in the curriculum. It is envisaged that the findings of this study could motivate and form a basis for empirical investigations on how CBC EMI policies are actualised in Kenyan schools and classrooms. Besides, other studies could adopt and replicate both the theoretical framework, and the analytical framework used here in other contexts.

Date of Award	25 Mar 2026
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bath
Supervisor	Lizzi Milligan (Supervisor) & Gail Forey (Supervisor)