- This comes as schools prepare to open for term one next week.
- Teachers had called for adequate funding to be able to implement CBC in secondary schools.
The government has released Sh18 billion to primary and secondary schools ahead of first term reopening on Monday.
The Principal Secretary for Basic Education Julius Jwan announced that Sh16 billion had already been released to secondary schools and another Sh2 billion to primary schools.
“I know I will be preempting what my boss will tell you, but as we speak now, the government has already released over Sh16 billion to secondary schools. Another Sh2 billion has been released to primary schools ahead of term one reopening next week,” the PS said.
Jwan spoke in Mombasa when he addressed secondary school heads during the 45th Kenya Secondary School Heads Association annual national conference.
Some 1.5 million learners who are currently in Grade 5 and will be transiting to Grade 6. They will join junior secondary school in January.
The national government is putting up additional 10,000 classrooms for the junior secondary schools, which are being built within the secondary schools.
Secondary school principals were concerned about the ability of their institutions to host the junior secondary schools without adequate funding.
This was Jwan’s first address to secondary school heads as the PS for Basic Education. He previously served as chief executive officer at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development.
The secondary school heads met last in 2019. They did not meet in 2020 and 2021 due to the restrictions brought about by Covid-19.
His address focused on six issues, top on the list being the Competency-Based Curriculum.
The PS told off "the so-called education experts" making commentary on TV shows alleging the country was not well prepared for the CBC curriculum, especially junior secondary.
Jwan said none of them had a better understanding of CBC and were in no position to comment on it.
Some, he said, were even proposing the country goes back to the 8-4-4 curriculum.
“You can never compare 8-4-4 to CBC because CBC is a principle of teachings and learning. It is a defined concept within the education system which we are trying to carry out within a structure of 2-6-3-3,” Jwan said.
“So, if you hear someone talking about 8-4-4 and CBC, please close your ears because that is completely ignorant. You can’t compare concepts to teaching and learning with a structure.”
He said the government is going to begin training over 60,000 secondary school teachers on CBC from April 25 ahead of the junior secondary roll-out next year.
“There is no new training going on, it is just reorientation of what you already learned in college to configure with the technological advancement of the new curriculum,” he said.
Students’ discipline
The PS called for collective initiative in the management of learners' discipline.
“This is a collective problem to the society that we all have to deal with, with everyone playing their part,” he said.
He further advised the school heads to release any student portraying any form of behaviour or indication that he or she might be targeting to put the school on fire.
The PS asked school heads to put them in custody and call their parents to come to pick them up if they suspect the learners might not go home when released and could come back to burn the school.
“It doesn’t matter the level of annoyance or aggrieved one is, any student attempting to burn their school is a criminal and should be treated as one,” he said.
Kessha had on Monday called on the government to review the Children’s Act in order to deal with the indiscipline cases among school-going children.
Kessha chairman Indimuli Kahi said there is need to review the Act to deal with indiscipline.
The Act he said was not anchored in the Ministry of Education, but in the Ministry of Labour.
“Parliament and the Ministry of Education must come up with rules and regulations to manage children's actions in education institutions,” Kahi said.
He said it was due to this reason that students walk scot-free whenever they make mistakes in schools.
“If you look at the Children’s Act. They are only answerable to their parents and the state. They cannot be held responsible by education institutions. They can break things, burn their schools and will walk scot free because nothing ties them,” he said.
Kahi said school heads faced a lot of indiscipline cases last year with a number of schools getting torched.
Over 35 schools were torched by unruly students last year forcing the government to temporarily close schools down to look into the matter.
“We have a challenge with how the Act is being used to manage the discipline of our children in school. We have to question the responsibility of students, this will play a central role in dealing with the issue of indiscipline,” Kahi said.
Examination Security
On the security of examination papers, Jwan refuted claims of any leakage in the 2021 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exam that ended on April 1 this year.
He reiterated the security measures put in place by the ministry since 2016 have seen a major drop in cheating cases during the national exams.
He said the government had adopted several security measures including storing the examinations on data banks where questions were being selected by machines for minimal human intervention.
“You will never convince me that people could have gained access to the examination papers in our data bank, no one can access the system,” he said.
He however noted the challenge was with the second paper, saying there might be room for pre-exposure. This he said was largely orchestrated by teachers within the examination centres.
“We have invested in security features and technology, any photo of the examination taken and shared can be traced to the source of origin,” he said.
Jwan commended the school heads saying since they were incorporated as the head of examination centres, the number of cheating incidences had significantly dropped since 2016.
In 2020, the government adopted the container system where national exams for both primary and secondary schools are stored in containers awaiting opening in the presence of education stakeholders.
A total of 346 metallic containers were distributed across the country with heavy security deployed to guard them during examination periods.
-Edited by SKanyara