11,000 new Grade 9 classrooms: Where are we as a country?

The government this year (2024) committed to constructing 11,000 classrooms in primary schools to accommodate the pioneer cohort of learners of the Competency-Based Curriculum currently in Grade 8.

The government said the classrooms would be ready latest December this year in readiness for the more than 1.3 million Grade 9 leaners, the final year of Junior School.

In a statement on November 14, Education CS Julius Ogamba said more funds had been allocated for construction of 16,000 classrooms required for Grade 9 and the progress was at an advanced stage.

“The government has allocated a total of Sh17.6 billion for the completion of these classrooms by December, 2024.  The construction is decentralised to the schools, thereby creating economic opportunities at the grassroots,” Ogamba said.

Ogamba’s statement was prompted by a hard-hitting statement from Catholic bishops who accused the government of fostering a culture of lies, and claimed that the CBC system was crumbling.

In August, 2022, former Education CS George Magoha revealed that the government had slashed the cost of constructing CBC classrooms by almost Sh500,000 for every facility.

He said previously, the cost was Sh1.2 million per classroom but this had come down to Sh788,000.

“That is the transformative shift, many years to come you will be able to compare the price difference,” he said while commissioning CBC classrooms at the Nairobi School. 

All matters constant, the Sh17.6 billion Ogamba mentioned would translate to roughly 22,000 classrooms, some 6,000 more classrooms from the 16,000 target.

That figure would drop to roughly 14,000 classrooms if the cost were to be the Sh1.2 million Magoha said was the previous average.

On November 15, Basic Education PS Belio Kipsang assured parents that the government will ensure Grade 9 classrooms are completed before schools open in January next year.

Kipsang said construction of 3,500 classrooms had already been completed in phase one while another 7500 were between 40 and 90 per cent complete in phase two.

While speaking at Meru county headquarters after supervising the opening of KCSE examination container, the PS said the undone classrooms would be complete by December 15 to bring the total classrooms to 11000.

He said the tally is expected to rise to 18,000 classrooms as another 7,000 units will be constructed by MPs at a cost of Sh6.8 billion.

“Our colleagues from the political side, the MPS, were given a conditional grant of Sh3.4 billion by the government and they were supposed to match this amount with another Sh3.4 billion from the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NGCDF) and build an additional 7000 classrooms to bring the total to 18,000,” Kipsang.

A quick calculation indicates that government envisions MPs to construct a classroom at a cost of roughly Sh971,400, some Sh183,400 higher than Magoha’s estimate.

Kipsang said the government also engaged some development partners and acquired Sh2 billion which would be used to construct an extra 2,000 classrooms in January, bringing the total tally to 20,000.

The PS said the extra facilities will be constructed on need basis, noting that that sometimes families migrate and parents change schools and a school may receive additional learners in Grade 9 who were not there in Grade 8.

“We know in January there might be one or two schools which may have missed out for one reason or the other and these 2,000 classrooms will handle any cases that may arise by then. So these are cases that we shall be able to handle as we move to January,” he said.

Jitters have surrounded the transition of learners to Grade 9 with some parents and stakeholders expressing fears that some schools may not be fully prepared to accommodate the learners.

A section of critics questioned why the government was committing billions of shillings for construction of new classrooms while secondary schools will not have Form 1s in 2025.

In their reasoned opinion, Grade 9 learners should have simply been accommodate in high schools to ease the burden and unnecessary pressure to construct thousands of new classrooms in primary schools in record time.

However, the Presidential Working Party on Education Reform in its report said after stakeholder consultation and public participation, parents wanted Grade 9 learners domiciled in Primary schools partly because of their young age.

The working group said that 93 per cent of Kenyans wanted their children retained in Primary schools because parents felt that they needed to engage more with them.

The parents reasoned that since most of primary schools are day schools, children would still go home daily after classes and bond with them.

Speaking at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church Moiben, Uasin Gishu on Sunday, October 27, President William Ruto sought to allay any fears regarding the availability of sufficient classrooms come January for the 9th graders.

"The future of our children is important for us as parents and as a nation, how we plan for them and how we educate them is important for us as a nation,'' he said.