Pertinent Issues Appertaining to Junior Secondary

By Mwalimu Kioko

The government has domiciled junior secondary schools primary schools contrary to prior experts' recommendation. This has aroused serious questions on facilities, administration and investment made so far.

Facilities

Most primary schools both public and private lack facilities needed to provide CBC curriculum. Such facilities like laboratories, libraries, sports & games facilities and administration blocks fit for high school are not there. 

One wonders why deny our learners the benefit of these facilities as they by large available in our high schools? Isn't it going to cost us more financially and timewise to upgrade primary schools to the required standard? 

Administration

The CBC system envisages that junior secondary school learners be handled by diploma and graduate teachers. With the new arrangement the government has deployed these teachers to be under the current primary school administration.

This has created a lot of friction as understandably, high school teachers feel humiliated while the primary school headteachers are facing insurbodination. This is going to evoke incessant tensions which are likely to compromise delivery of quality education.

Secondly, in the initial stages it is expected that junior sec teachers will be sharing staffroom with the primary school.

Not to mention that some of these staffrooms lack even the basic facilities like furniture -  even in some instances the staffroom is lacking altogether forcing teachers to operate from classrooms. With such humiliation to graduates, does the government expect the teachers to deliver?  

It is proposed that eventually, junior secondary schools will have their own administrative structure independent of the primary school. Consequently, basic education will become a three tier system.

This begs the question of whether it is economical to do that. Consider the new administration ( Principal, deputy, support staff etc) administration blocks, capacity building and attendant logistics. TSC will have to employ as many principals, deputy principals and other administrators as the number of primary schools.

But having JSS in current sec schools would have saved that unnecessary cost. It proves to be resource gobbling yet less would have been spent on capacity building the existing high schools.

Taking into account that there are many CDF secondary schools which have been built in the same primary schools,  then one wonders why have another one within the same compound in the name of junior school - even the compound may not be enough to accommodate different facilities for the different schools.

Wouldn't it have been easier and cheaper to establish junior schools where there is need rather than having them everywhere? 

Apparently, under the proposed structure the government will employ graduate teachers(remunerated as high school teachers) for junior secondary who are still qualified to teach the senior high but won't since they will operate independently.

Yet if both junior and senior were together there would have been huge benefit in optimising resources due to the economies of scale. Apparently, from this understanding the previous government, had considered to have high school teachers be trained on three subjects (one for one level and two for the other) as opposed to two in order to be more useful in the new system.

This framework was being worked on by the institutions of higher learning in conjunction with TSC. It's back to the drawing board.

Moreover ,given the many subjects to be taught in the junior secondary it is inconceivable that the government will employ enough teachers in all junior schools. It would have been prudent if they were hosted in current secondary schools since they have teachers for most of these subjects. 

Bottom line is that having junior schools together with senior schools is more economically viable since they use similar resources and they will be fewer but large schools provided that accessibility will be addressed.

30 000 New Teachers a drop in the Ocean

Kenya has about 25 000 public primary schools. Each gets one teacher, the lucky ones scrambling for a second teacher from the remaining 5000. CBC subjects are 14 in number yet the one teacher can only teach two.

The rest are taught by privately employed teachers using resources contributed by the parents hence beating the argument that the government wants to lower the cost.

In fact, those low income parents would have taken their kids to the nearby day secondary schools and evade these additional costs as the schools already have the capacity.

Growth and Development of the Child

CBC curriculum objective is to train wholesome citizens to provide appropriate human resources for the current dynamic world. 

With the government' arrangement it means our children will live in one place up to the age of 16 years ( grade 9).

Considering that most Kenyans live in the rural areas then these children will lack exposure early in their lives which will have a direct negative bearing on their human growth and development.

They will miss the chance to interact with new environments, like new tribes, climates, people, experiences etc hence they will  more likely to be prejudiced against new ideas, culture etc as they almost matured in the same environment.

Wasteful Investment

Finally, the previous government and secondary schools both public and private  had put billions in building classrooms, dormitories and training high school teachers in readiness for the transition to junior school.

All this appears had gone up in smoke. Some private secondary schools had invested millions to admit grade 7 students.

Though they can still go ahead with the plan, it is challenging for them to realize return on their investment especially given that boarding might be abolished and yet some of them are not able to attract enough day-scholars.

In conclusion, there is need to have more consultation from experts and stakeholders. Otherwise, more confusion and chaos will reign rather than provide solutions.