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The government
appears to be pulling all stops to ensure the transition to Grade 9 of the pioneer
cohort of CBC learners faces little or no hiccups come January.
January 2025 will mark
the onset of the final year in Junior school for 9 graders amid concerns that
the government is ill-prepared to facilitate a smooth transition.
Parents and education
stakeholders have questioned the feasibility of completing the construction of 16,000
new classrooms to accommodate the 1.5 million learners as well as the
availability of enough teachers to handle the new class.
But all indications
are that the government is working round the clock to beat the odds with barely
three months to the changeover, albeit with challenges.
The Teachers Service
Commission (TSC) on October 1 advertised the online recruitment of 39,550
teachers for Junior schools targeting those already registered with the
commission.
“Serving interns are
expected to apply in their current counties/sub-counties/work stations [and]
will only be required to present their identification cards during the verification
process,” the ad reads in part.
The commission set
the application deadline for October 7 and warned teachers against fraudsters
who might seek to extort money from them in the guise of assisting in the
recruitment.
But on Thursday,
October 3, TSC said the recruitment portal encountered a technical challenge
which affected the teacher recruitment exercise.
“Sorry, the page
you’re looking for is currently unavailable. Please try again later,” was the
error message relayed back to applicants.
“We apologise for the
inconvenience this has caused and kindly request your patience as we work
diligently to restore the portal as soon as possible,” TSC said in a statement.
Applicants asked that
the technical hitch be fixed expeditiously and the application deadline
extended.
Meanwhile, the
government said the ongoing construction of 16,000 new classrooms for Grade 9
learners was well on course with Education CS Julius Ogamba continuing with
inspection of the progress made thus far.
The classrooms are,
however, a far cry from the over 32,000 classrooms and laboratories needed
across over 23,000 primary schools to accommodate the 1.5 million Grade 9 learners.
Learning practical
subjects such as pre-technical science, health education, agriculture, home
science and integrated science will require laboratories.
There have been
suggestions from some stakeholders that the pioneer CBC class be domiciled in
secondary schools and use facilities that would have otherwise been used by
Form 1s.
The 2023 KCPE class was
the last cohort to sit the exam under the 8-4-4 system, meaning there will be
no Form 1 learners in secondary schools in 2025 as the current Form 1s will
have transitioned to Form 2.
“We have a situation
where classrooms will be vacant but we are struggling to accommodate these
students in primary schools where we don’t have classrooms and other
infrastructure,” Bumula MP Jack Wamboka told Parliament.
“We have three months to
think about how these children are going to get through. Can we build enough
classrooms in that time? Let the government change course and put these
children in secondary schools,” Kabondo Kasipul MP Eva Obara echoed the
sentiments.
During a recent debate
on an adjournment motion for Parliament to discuss government preparedness for
Grade 9 transition, a section of MPs proposed that all the 46,000 intern
teachers be hired and trained in time before January to avert possible chaos come
January.
But even as the government
rushes against time to have facilities in place and TSC rolls out a teacher
hiring exercise, questions still abound about the training of teachers to instil
the requisite skills to handle technical subjects such as health education.
With the TSC teacher
recruitment portal having encountered technical challenges making the hiring
process of the 39,550 junior school teachers a false start, this can only serve
to exacerbate worries that transition to Grade 9 could be chaotic.