Kenya BECF Core Competencies for Basic Education

Communication is the act of transferring information from one place to another, whether vocally, visually, or non-verbally. The discipline of communication focuses on how people use messages to generate meanings within and across various contexts, cultures, channels, and media. The discipline promotes the effective and ethical practice of human communication.

Collaboration is the process of two or more people or organizations working together to realize shared goals. Collaboration may require leadership, although this can be social within decentralized or egalitarian groups or teams that work collaboratively in relation to gaining greater resources, recognition and motivation.

Self-efficacy is a person’s belief about his or her capabilities to perform tasks or assignments that can change and transform his or her life. It determines how the person feels, thinks, behaves and motivates themselves. Self-efficacy has the potential to determine four major processes namely cognitive, motivational, affective and selection processes.

An important outcome of quality education is teaching learners how to think critically. The British Council (2015) identifies three types of thinking: reasoning, making judgements, and problem solving. It is possible for learners to reason in an uncritical way. When learners are empowered with critical thinking, they avoid being subjective, and use logic and evidence to arrive at conclusions. Critical thinking also facilitates exploring new ways of doing things and learner autonomy. Learners learn that for every issue there are multiple perspectives that they can explore, rather than a rigid recall and regurgitation of information.

Creativity and imagination refers to the ability to form new images and sensations in the mind, and to turn them into reality(British Council, 2016). It is the ability to imagine things that are not real, to form pictures in the mind of things that one has not seen or experienced, and turn those pictures into real things. It also refers to the act or power of forming mental images of things that are not present to the senses, or that are never wholly perceived in reality, and creating physical representations of those images.

Citizenship is the state of being vested with the rights, privileges, and duties of a citizen. It creates a sense of belonging and attachment to one's nation.A sense of citizenship helps to equip young people to deal with situations of conflict and controversy knowledgeably and tolerantly. They are able to understand the consequences of their actions, and those of the adults around them.

Digital literacy can be described as having the knowledge, skills and behaviours which are necessary to effectively and safely use a wide range of digital content and devices. Such devices include mobile phones, smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops among others. All these fall within the category of network enabled devices. Digital literacy focuses mainly on network enabled devices and should not be confused with computer literacy skills. However, traditional forms of literacy and computer literacy are enhancers in the acquisition of digital literacy skills.

Learning to learn is the ability to pursue and persist in learning, to organise one’s own learning by the effective management of time and information, both individually and in groups. This competence includes awareness of one’s learning process and needs, identifying available opportunities, and the ability to overcome obstacles in order to learn successfully. This competence means gaining, processing and assimilating new knowledge and skills as well as seeking and making use of guidance. Learning to learn helps learners to build on prior learning and life experiences in order to use and apply knowledge and skills in a variety of contexts. There are four pillars of learning: Learning to know, learning to do, learning to be and learning to live to live together.