KEMI Rolls Out National Virtual Training for 21,493 Heads of Institutions on Career Guidance and Senior School Pathways
The Kenya Education Management Institute (KEMI) has kicked off a national capacity-building programme targeting 21,493 Heads of Institutions (HOIs) of junior schools across the country, aimed at strengthening their capacity to guide learners on Career Guidance, Senior School Pathways, Tracks and Subject Choices for Grade 7, 8 and 9 learners.
The training, delivered entirely virtually, is being implemented under the Kenya Primary Education Equity in Learning (KPEEL) programme.
This latest phase follows the successful conclusion of a two-day national capacity-building programme for junior school and career guidance teachers, which ran from 17th August to 18th September 2026 across all 47 counties in Kenya.
That earlier phase focused on equipping nominated Junior School Career Teachers with the knowledge and tools required to guide learners through one of the most consequential transitions in their education journey — the move from Junior School into Senior School under the Competency-Based Education (CBE) framework.
With the teacher-focused training now complete, KEMI has turned its attention to school leadership, rolling out a parallel and equally ambitious virtual training targeting Heads of Institutions nationwide.
The move reflects a deliberate, layered strategy: first building the capacity of teachers who interact with learners daily, then sensitising the school leaders who set the tone and direction for how career guidance is embedded into the culture of each institution.
A Programme Built on Scale and Equity
The scale of this initiative is significant. It has been designed to benefit 21,493 Junior Schools, 42,986 Junior School Career Teachers, and 21,493 Heads of Institutions across the country.
Few education interventions in Kenya’s recent history have attempted to reach such a wide cross-section of school leadership in a single, coordinated push.
At the heart of the programme is a simple but powerful goal: ensuring that learners, teachers, school leaders and parents all have access to the knowledge and resources they need to make informed, interest-based and ability-based decisions regarding Senior School pathways, subject tracks, subject combinations, and the future education and career opportunities that flow from those choices.
This is a critical intervention point in Kenya’s education system. Under the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC), learners in Grade 9 are required to select a pathway — Arts and Sports Science, Social Sciences, or Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) — that will shape the trajectory of their Senior School education and, ultimately, their career options.
For many learners and their families, this is unfamiliar territory, and the risk of learners making uninformed choices, or choices driven by peer pressure rather than genuine interest and aptitude, has been a persistent concern among educators and policymakers alike.
By targeting Heads of Institutions directly, KEMI is addressing a critical gap: even where career guidance teachers are trained and equipped, their work can only go so far without the backing, understanding, and active support of school leadership.
Heads of Institutions set timetables, allocate resources, approve parent engagement activities, and ultimately determine how much institutional weight is placed behind career guidance efforts.
Their buy-in and understanding are, therefore, indispensable to the success of the broader initiative.
Purpose-Built for Capacity, Sensitisation and Resource Access
Beyond the direct training components, the programme has a broader mandate. It was created to build the capacity of nominated Junior School teachers nationwide, sensitise Heads of Institutions on their role in supporting learners through pathway decisions, and provide learner- and parent-friendly Information, Education and Communication (IEC) materials, career assessment tools, and digital resources that can be used well beyond the training sessions themselves.
This means the initiative is not conceived as a one-off event but as the foundation for a sustained support system.
The IEC materials and career assessment tools being developed and disseminated are intended to remain in schools as reference resources, supporting ongoing conversations between teachers, learners and parents long after the formal training concludes.
The digital resources component also signals a forward-looking approach, recognising that career guidance in the CBC era will increasingly rely on accessible, easy-to-use digital tools that can reach learners and parents in both urban and rural settings.
A Multi-Agency, Coordinated Approach
Led by KEMI, the intervention is being implemented through a coordinated multi-agency approach that brings together key education sector stakeholders.
These include the Ministry of Education and the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), alongside other relevant government agencies.
This collaborative structure is designed to ensure that the training is not implemented in isolation but is aligned with national education policy, teacher management systems, and broader curriculum implementation efforts.
The involvement of the TSC, in particular, underscores the importance placed on ensuring that the teachers and school leaders being trained are properly recognised and supported within the formal teacher management framework, while the Ministry of Education’s participation anchors the programme firmly within national CBC implementation priorities.
This multi-agency model also reflects lessons learned from previous education reforms in Kenya, where fragmented implementation across different agencies has sometimes slowed progress or created inconsistencies in how new policies are rolled out at the school level.
By bringing these institutions together under a single coordinated framework, KEMI and its partners appear intent on avoiding such pitfalls as CBC transitions into its most consequential phase yet — the movement of learners from Junior School into Senior School.
Five Cohorts, One Virtual Classroom
With the teacher-focused training concluded, KEMI is now finalising the virtual training component for Heads of Institutions.
The two-day virtual training is being delivered in five cohorts, a structural choice that allows the institute to manage a training population of roughly 21,493 HOIs without overwhelming its virtual delivery infrastructure or diluting the quality of engagement during sessions.
The staggered, cohort-based approach also allows KEMI to gather feedback and make adjustments between cohorts, ensuring that lessons learned from earlier sessions can inform and improve the delivery of subsequent ones.
This is particularly important given the scale and national reach of the programme, spanning schools in urban centres and the most remote parts of the country alike.
The choice to deliver the training virtually is itself notable. It reflects both the practical necessity of reaching over 21,000 Heads of Institutions in a cost-effective and time-efficient manner, and a broader shift within Kenya’s education sector towards leveraging technology for large-scale teacher and leadership development.
Virtual delivery removes the logistical and financial burden of travel and accommodation that would otherwise be associated with an in-person training of this magnitude, while still allowing for structured, interactive engagement between facilitators and participants.
The training is designed to equip HOIs with the knowledge and skills required to effectively guide learners in making informed career and subject choices, engage parents meaningfully in the pathway selection process, and work collaboratively with teachers in supporting learners through this critical decision-making period.
A Call to Focus and Participate
Speaking during the official opening of the training, KEMI Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Maurice Odondo, urged Heads of Institutions to remain focused and to actively participate throughout the sessions.
He emphasised the significance of the training in strengthening the implementation of Competency-Based Education (CBE), noting that the success of the broader CBC transition depends heavily on how well-prepared school leaders are to support learners at this pivotal stage.
Dr. Odondo’s remarks underscore a recurring theme in Kenya’s ongoing curriculum reforms: that policy frameworks and curriculum documents alone are not sufficient to guarantee successful implementation.
The people tasked with translating those frameworks into daily practice — teachers and school leaders — must be equipped, informed, and actively engaged if the reforms are to achieve their intended outcomes.
Looking Ahead
The virtual training for Heads of Institutions is scheduled to conclude on 2nd October 2026. Once complete, it will mark the culmination of a nationwide capacity-building effort that has, over a period of several weeks, reached tens of thousands of teachers and school leaders across all counties in Kenya.
For education stakeholders watching Kenya’s CBC transition closely, this initiative represents one of the most comprehensive attempts yet to prepare the school-level ecosystem — teachers, school leaders, and by extension parents and learners — for the pathway and subject choice decisions that will define the Senior School experience for millions of learners in the years ahead.
As the five cohorts of Heads of Institutions complete their training over the coming days, attention will likely turn to how effectively this newly built capacity translates into practical, on-the-ground support for learners navigating one of the most important decisions of their academic journey.
