Mediating transition comes with huge challenges, especially where systems – for lack of a better word – work at cross-purposes. The challenges of managing education got even heavier during the second year of implementing the Competency Based Curriculum.
The dearth of competence is eloquent. A system that seeks to encourage competence during the early years in the education of a country’s children, is a case study of poor planning.
The turbulence of transitioning from the 8-4-4 curriculum is undermining education in unconscionable ways. Sabotaging education is hurting the confidence of the children, their education and their future.
The children know because the system is harassing them. Parents know because the education of their children is suffering mismanagement. Teachers know the challenges, but no one is acting on their documented concerns.
Regional, county, subcounty and zonal education officers are stuck. They don’t have the means and capacity to inspect schools. Subcounty education officers are grounded. Some have been in those offices for about a decade.
Some cannot travel to schools because they do not have official vehicles or fuel. At least 18 schools in North Karachuonyo subcounty have not hosted a local education personnel going by the title ‘quality assurance officer’.
Stakeholders wonder what quality the officers are assuring if they do not have the capacity to inspect schools. Some public primary schools are falling apart, without teachers to run the institutions.
Eight headteachers confirmed they have never hosted a quality assurance officer during the five or so years they have been in their schools. To be sure, the quality assurance officers have promised to visit, but they have never done it. They are either ‘busy’ or grounded. The best they can do is to sit in their offices and wait for salaries.
Frustrated headteachers go to these offices to present petitions that are never answered. Not that those education officers are indifferent, but because they are equally frustrated by ‘lack’ of resources.
Education Cabinet Secretary Prof George Magoha used to make surprise visits to schools to witness the neglect first-hand. It’s time sheriffs at Jogoo House devised another way of listening to the vibes from the ground.
Jogoo House should send the signal that education needs to be salvaged from the precipice. Jogoo House may not appreciate the current muddle because the headquarters of the Ministry of Education is trying to run an unwieldy system. This is impossible without the right information.
On January 12, 2024, an official statement signed by Education CS Ezekiel Mochogu sought to “ensure smooth learning at the Junior Secondary School level”.
The press release, issued for immediate release, stated: “All the 1,282,574 candidates who sat the 2023 Kenya Primary Schools Education Assessment be allowed to join Grade 7 in the Junior Secondary Schools hosted by the primary schools where they attended Grade 1-6.”
The pupils were expected to use Grade 7 classrooms that housed the current Grade 8 learners in 2023. But Jogoo House does not know that some primary schools do not host Junior Secondary Schools. The headquarters does not know that, through some opaque inspection last year, some schools were denied the right to host JSS.
The CS’s statement was overruled last week when Grade 7 classes in some institutions were dispersed. The verbal instructions, asking Grade 7 pupils to ‘disperse’, came from quality assurance officers. These officers have not visited some of the schools they were ordering to relocate Grade 7 pupils in the middle of the term.
The JSS contradictions are many. For example, Jogoo House and State House have advised Junior Secondary Schools not to charge any fees to Grade 7 and 8 pupils. But on the ground different schools have imposed conflicting charges, citing undocumented consent of stakeholders.
Some charge between Sh12,000 and Sh18,000, which is way above payment in Day Secondary Schools. Much of the money is for ‘lunch’ in schools where other pupils don’t eat in school.
The dearth of standards allows headteachers and mendacious education officers to exploit constrained parents and guardians. Jogoo House should address these challenges to salvage CBC.
