Junior Secondary School (Grades 7,8,9) to remain in their respective existing primary schools -President Ruto

 

President William Ruto says that the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) test for Grade 6 will no longer be used to decide where a student goes to junior secondary school (JSS).

This comes after the Presidential Working Group on Education Reforms gave a preliminary report to the president of state on Thursday. 

 

This group was set up by President Ruto on September 30, 2022, to look at the country's new CBC education system and make suggestions.

Instead, according to Ruto, KPSEA will be used to examine students' academic achievement and inform those in the education industry of the parts of the competency-based curriculum (CBC) that need improvement.

The president also said that the junior high schools for grades 7, 8, and 9 should move into the current elementary schools.

According to a statement made by State House Spokesperson Hussein Mohamed, "The Ministry of Education will offer the required rules on how this would be done."
The government also told all elementary schools to build an extra classroom and laboratory for junior high and high school students to use.

"Within the next year, labs will be built on a priority basis. Parliamentarians are urged to strive toward securing funding for the additional facilities. 

 

"Primary schools would simultaneously share labs and other facilities with junior high and secondary schools that are close by," he said.

The government will also collaborate with important education partners to train teachers in the skills they need to start teaching CBC classes based on the system's guiding principles.

 

"To guarantee that the nation has an adequate number of teachers who are compliant with CBC, the Ministry of Education, the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development, and the Instructors Service Commission will collaborate on strategies for quickly retooling teachers.

 Teachers who will be working with students in Grade 7 will be given priority, Mohamed said.

Ruto's government will also hire an extra 30,000 teachers by January 2023 to help with the switch to CBC and to make up for the lack of teachers across the country.

The destiny of the Grade Six graduates has been a point of contention between the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) and the Kenya Union of Post Primary Teachers (KUPPET) in recent months, with each organization desiring to retain control over them.

KUPPET says that secondary schools are better equipped to help the kids make the change, but KNUT says that sending the kids there would put their safety at risk.

Age is also a reason why KNUT doesn't want Grade 6 students to go to high school.

 

The union says it's not a good idea to put students between the ages of 11 and 14 and 15 and 19 in the same building, which is something that the other union disagrees with.

The final report from the Presidential Working Group on Education Reform must be given to the President by March 2023.