About this course

CBA Mastery: Item Writing Course is a self-paced online course that trains teachers and assessment practitioners to write high-quality test items for Competency Based Assessment (CBA). Across seven structured units, you learn how to design valid, reliable, and learner-centred items aligned to Kenya's Competency Based Curriculum (CBC), how to build clear scoring rubrics, and how to avoid the biases and flaws that undermine fair assessment.

The course is built for classroom teachers, head of department leads, examiners, and education officers who need practical, hands-on item-writing skills rather than abstract theory. Every unit pairs short, focused lessons with practice activities, and an AI Tutor is available at every step to give feedback, explain concepts, and review your drafted items. Your progress, grades, transcript, and certificate are tracked automatically inside the app, and a certificate is issued when you complete every unit and pass the final exam.

The course is built and maintained by the CBA Mastery team, a group of educators and assessment specialists passionate about improving the quality of classroom and national assessment in Kenya. We update the content regularly to keep it aligned with the latest CBC guidance and assessment best practices, so what you learn reflects what is actually expected in schools today.

Whether you are preparing your own classroom assessments or writing items for external examinations, this course gives you the tools, examples, and support to write items that measure what learners truly know and can do.