The government must revitalize quality assurance and standards to raise the quality of basic education, a renowned educationist Joseph Obonyo has said.
The former Teachers Service Commission (TSC) Commissioner regretted that unlike before, there is lack of continuous assessment of schools by the government to help the ministry understand how best to offer support, including making necessary changes even in available education policies.
“We have witnessed over the past years how the government has killed quality assurance in our public schools. Unless there is thorough supervision of our schools, we will keep having problems in the education sector,” stated Obonyo.
He noted that strengthening the inspectorate in schools has the potential to identify existing gaps so that the ministry and the commission are able to address needs for quality outcomes, including checking on the mismanagement of funds.
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He also noted that part of the problem bedeviling the education sector includes the creation of many education commissions which keep giving reports but whose recommendations never get implemented.
On the CBC rollout, the former TSC commissioner observed that the new curriculum was hurriedly implemented as schools lack requisite infrastructure. He also noted that teachers have not been properly tooled for the new curriculum to the detriment of the learners.
“The ideal situation ought to be domiciling the Junior Secondary School in secondary school because they already have the facilities. However, with the insistence on hosting them in primary schools, we are going to have a lot of vacant facilities across our secondary schools while primary schools will be struggling,” he observed.
The educationist regretted too that public schools’ implementation of the CBC is way much weaker compared to private academies which already have Science laboratories and other facilities.
Obonyo, a former principal of Maranda High School and the immediate former registrar at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology (JOOUST), is also the director Jayson Academy in Ndori town, Siaya County.
By Erick Nyayiera
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