• The post claimed that 2016/2017 students with an aggregate of D+ and above are asked to apply for P1 teaching courses.
• The government halted admission of trainees to teaching colleges in 2019 under a plan to advance the training model.
A Facebook post suggesting that teacher training colleges have opened applications for students who scored grade D+ (Plus) is fake.
The post claimed that students who finished schooling in 2016/2017 and have an aggregate of D+ and above in their Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education are asked to apply for P1 teaching courses.
"Interested candidates are asked to make manual applications and submit them to the Sub-County Director of Education office for second intake admission.
“Officers at respective sub-counties are desperately waiting for them. Please pass to our communities using all channels of communication including churches,” the post read.
The Star's fact-check investigated the claim in the post and established it as false.
In fact, the government halted admission of trainees to teaching colleges in 2019 under a plan to advance the training model.
Currently, the entry requirement for a certificate training in a teacher's colleges in the country is Grade C- (minus).
Basic Education PS Belio Kipsang in an interview said teacher colleges are currently not admitting new students to allow for upgrading of the coursework to fit the new education system.
The plan, Kipsang revealed was to have the institutions resume admission this year but that was cut short by the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The first group of students will join the institutions in May next year after we froze admission in January 2019,” Kipsang said.
Kipsang also revealed that the new teacher training program will affect the current entry qualification and push it to Grade C (plain) in the KCSE exams.
Teachers Service Commission, the government agency responsible for the registration and employment of teachers in the country also termed the post fake.
TSC director of communication Beatrice Wababu, said the commission is the entity with the legal mandate to prescribe entry qualification, register and employ teachers in the country.
A controversial plan to admit students with grade D+ (Plus) was hatched in 2019 but was short-lived after the Teachers Service Commission fought it arguing it would compromise the quality of teachers.
The plan was an arrangement by the then Education CS Amina Mohamed as a crash program to quickly address the teacher shortage in the country.
Disgruntled by the decision, TSC sought legal advice from the Attorney General.
In November 2019, AG Kihara Kariuki said the Education CS had no such powers.
He said only the TSC has the mandate to prescribe entry qualifications pushing the Education ministry to back down and withdraw the notice.
Those who had been admitted were also forced to switch to other courses that match their entry qualifications in Technical colleges.
This story was produced by The Star in partnership with Code for Africa’s iLAB data journalism programme, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie.