Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Julius Ogamba has reiterated that Grades 7 to 9 Junior Secondary School (JSS) classes will remain domiciled in primary schools.
The CS, who was speaking while launching the distribution of textbooks for Grade 9 on Wednesday, said the matter was settled by The Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER).
This comes amid calls by the Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association (KESSHA) to domicile Grade 8 and 9 learners in secondary schools, citing inadequate resources in primary schools.
The Grade 9 who are the first cohort of JSS learners are expected to transition next year.
The CS said the government has already constructed 3,500 classrooms, with construction of 7,500 others between 22 % to 68 % complete. The last 5,000 classrooms are being done in partnership between the Ministry of Education (MoE) and National Government Constituencies Development Fund offices ( NG-CDF).
The CS detailed that the distribution exercise of textbooks for Grade 9 is a commitment by the government to ensure all learners have adequate teaching and learning materials.
“The government has also trained more than 60,000 teachers to deal with the section and will also employ 20,000 interns in January 2025 to fill the gap, in addition to a plan to retool more teachers in the same month,” he said.
On Wednesday, Teachers Service Commission (TSC) CEO Dr. Nancy Macharia told the National Assembly Education Committee that all 46,000 intern teachers were being employed on permanent and pensionable terms, with an additional 20,000 teachers set to be hired on the same terms in January.
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Dr. Macharia said that the recent advertisement early this month calling for 46,000 applications for JSS teachers attracted a whopping 314,000 applicants.
She revealed that 93,646 teachers applied for only 6,000 primary school positions, 144,177 teachers applied for only 39,550 JSS positions, and 76,294 teachers applied for 450 positions in secondary schools.
The TSC boss further disclosed that there are more than 400,000 qualified, unemployed teachers in the country,
The Commission outlined its preparedness for the transition to Grade 9 under the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC), noting that it had recruited 48,550 teachers over the past two financial years. Of these, 39,550 are interns, while 9,000 were employed on permanent terms.
According to documents before the Committee, 8,378 primary school teachers were deployed to Junior Secondary Schools (JSS), raising the total number of JSS teachers to 56,928.
By Obegi Malack | obegimalack@gmail.com
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