Thousands of Heads of Primary  Schools Face Demotion.

Latest plans indicated that thousands of primary heads without degrees are likely to face demotion in January following  reforms proposed by the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER) take effect as expected.

Various headteachers of primary schools currently serving as heads in Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) under the new Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) were contracted  to hold their positions until December 30, 2023.

Following a new proposal that is in place to create Comprehensive Schools which include pre-school, primary school, and JSS , they will be managed by a headteacher within the same compound.

At the moment, there are over 23,000 public primary schools hosting Junior Secondary Schools in Kenya.

For those headteachers who do not qualify for headship in the comprehensive schools,  they will be stripped of certain roles,that will entail control over school operations and funds.

In addition, the PWPER report states that the head of the comprehensive school will serve as the accounting officer for all its sections.

Following  the commission’s inability to draw candidates for the administration positions,a good number of schools have been functioning without substantive heads.

Tsc has been advertising these positions  since December 2022.

The Teachers unions attribute the predicament on the commission, indicating  that thousands of teachers  have remained in the same job groups for a long time and are therefore ineligible for advancement to administrative posts.

In the new report, the  composition of the School Board of Management (BOM) will also change.

At the moment,  JSSs are managed by an interim sub-committee from the primary school BOM, however, the report proposes limiting the number of BOM to nine or Ten members.

Additionally, school heads of the comprehensive and senior secondary schools will be accountable to the Ministry of Education instead of the Teachers Service Commission, as was previously the case.

Thousands of Heads of Primary  Schools Face Demotion