Ministry plan on how to recover lost time and save academic year

Short lesson time, longer learning weeks and reduced class work are some of the options education stakeholders have proposed to recover a lost school year.

It has also been suggested to eliminate school-based exams that eat up two weeks of every term, and instead adopt formative assessment.

Primary and secondary school heads yesterday said term one and two topics can be consolidated to make it easier to cover the syllabus when schools open in January.

“We can reduce weekend and holiday breaks and adopt crash-learning programmes,” said Kenya Primary School Heads Association national chairman Nicholas Gathemia.

According to Mr Gathemia, school reporting time and time allocated to lessons can also be adjusted. 

“If we start lessons at 8am, we may start an hour earlier. And if lessons end at 5pm, we may add an hour. This will create time to do more,” he told The Sunday Standard.

Presently, each lesson under the new curriculum is expected to last 30 minutes with a total of five lessons every day at pre-primary level and seven lessons for lower primary learners.

Pupils in Pre-Primary One and Two (PP1 &II) should be taught 25 lessons per week while lower primary classes (Grade I, II &III) have 35 lessons.

Ministry plan on how to recover lost time and save academic year

Short lesson time, longer learning weeks and reduced class work are some of the options education stakeholders have proposed to recover a lost school year.

It has also been suggested to eliminate school-based exams that eat up two weeks of every term, and instead adopt formative assessment.

Primary and secondary school heads yesterday said term one and two topics can be consolidated to make it easier to cover the syllabus when schools open in January.

“We can reduce weekend and holiday breaks and adopt crash-learning programmes,” said Kenya Primary School Heads Association national chairman Nicholas Gathemia.

According to Mr Gathemia, school reporting time and time allocated to lessons can also be adjusted. 

“If we start lessons at 8am, we may start an hour earlier. And if lessons end at 5pm, we may add an hour. This will create time to do more,” he told The Sunday Standard.

Presently, each lesson under the new curriculum is expected to last 30 minutes with a total of five lessons every day at pre-primary level and seven lessons for lower primary learners.

Pupils in Pre-Primary One and Two (PP1 &II) should be taught 25 lessons per week while lower primary classes (Grade I, II &III) have 35 lessons.

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