Junior Secondary Classes in Primary Schools Will Be Taught by High School Teachers Who Have Undergone CBC Training
Now that the placement concerns for junior secondary school and grade seven have been addressed, more questions are starting to surface.
- One of them is whether the laboratories will be finished in a month.
- What about the built-in seventh-grade classrooms?
- What about the teachers who received training from TSC and MOE to deal with seventh-grade pupils when they enter secondary institutions?
A source linked to the TSC claims that the commission won’t be training teachers for grade seven; rather, it will rely on those who were trained in May.
This means that the CBC-trained high school teachers should be ready to receive their letters of deployment if TSC selects this course of action.
Less subjects than those listed in the Basic Education Curriculum Framework will be required of JSS students (BCEF).
The PWPER noted that several learning areas overlapped and advised that comparable topics be grouped and taught together.
The BCEF offers 12 required and elective subjects. English, Kiswahili or Kenya Sign Language, mathematics, integrated science, home science, pre-tech and pre-career education, social studies, religion, business, agriculture, life skills, and physical education are considered core subjects.
The students are also required to select one or two electives from the performing arts, computer science, visual arts, and foreign language categories.
Although a deadline was not specified, the President gave the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) instructions to reorganize the learning areas in order to lessen the workload on children.
It was suggested that the number of subject areas for Grades 1 through 6 stay the same while the curriculum designs are altered to lighten the workload.
It’s too early to comment without the comprehensive report but these things must be done fast. We’ve done corrections with the KICD. We haven’t printed but we’re ready once given the go-ahead,” Kenya Publishers Association chairman Kiarie Kamau.
According to the President’s declaration, the government would hire 30,000 teachers to bridge the 116,000-teacher staffing imbalance in public schools.
The Saturday Nation has learned that the instructors may be hired on a contract basis rather than on a permanent and pensionable basis, despite the fact that the details of the recruitment (which the President instructed be done by January 2023) were not made public.
Hiring diploma holders from technical and vocational education training (TVET) institutes to teach pre-tech topics is a suggestion that might irritate teachers unions.
Few qualified teachers exist for the disciplines, therefore an earlier Teachers Service Commission (TSC) plan called for secondary school tutors with backgrounds in math, physics, and home science to be retrained to teach the subjects.
Woodworking, metalworking, technical drawing, electrical, electronics, home administration, typewriting, shorthand, textile and clothing, car mechanics, and accounting are examples of pre-tech courses.
Pre-tech subjects provide as a foundation for TVET, an area that is important to the Kenya Kwanza agenda, hence President Ruto reportedly opposed removing them.
The government will also be providing “hustlers” with work prospects by hiring those with TVET diplomas.
President Ruto stated yesterday that the majority of stakeholders who provided recommendations to the PWPER backed the CBC while making proposals for its enhancement.
“Eighty six per cent decided or proposed that children in Grade 6 should move to Grade 7 but junior secondary be domiciled with primary schools. It is for the reason that many parents need to keep an eye on young children going to Grade 7,8 and 9,” he said.