The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has commenced a process that will see the first batch involving thousands of primary and secondary school teachers being moved to teach in junior secondary schools.
The Commission has unleashed a plan that will see a good number of teachers being placed to teach in junior secondary starting December this year.
Junior secondary school section involves Grade seven, eight and nine. The current Grade six learners will join junior secondary in January 2023.
The Grade six learners will join junior high after sitting for their final assessment in primary school this November.
The exams known as Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) will start on 28th November and end on 30th November 2022.
Details show that only teachers with the required qualifications will be allowed to teach in junior high next year.
Both primary and secondary school teachers and those in special schools will take part in teaching the pioneer Grade 7 learners next year.
For primary school teachers seeking to be deployed to junior secondary they must at least have one of the following qualification;
1. Diploma in Education
2. Higher National Diploma in Education
3. Bachelors Degree in Education
4. Post Graduate Diploma in Education
5. Masters Degree or PhD in Education
In addition the teachers must have been trained in Secondary Teacher Education with at least two teaching subjects.
The teacher must also have scored a mean grade of C+ (Plus) and above at KCSE and must have at least C+ (Plus) and above at KCSE in the two teaching subjects.
TSC says teachers who scored C (Plain) and below at KCSE and joined Universities and studied Bachelors degree in Education (Secondary option) will not be eligible for deployment.
Those who received training on Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) will have an added advantage. The Commission has a list of all primary school teachers who attended CBC trainings.
However primary school teachers will only be used in teaching Grade seven pupils in places where there are acute shortage of secondary school teachers trained to teach junior secondary.
At least 60,000 secondary school teachers were trained to handle Grade Seven and Eight in April this year.
The Commission also trained 120,000 primary school teachers to handle grade six learners in December last year.
Most primary school teachers who meet the requirement to teach in secondary schools will be moved this year and early next year as the Commission plans major recruitment exercise as well as staff balancing.
TSC is in a process to recruit at least 30,000 primary and secondary school teachers in January next year.
P1 teachers who have been complaining of slow pace of deployment process will be surprised this time as TSC plans to move most of them to teach in 8.4.4 secondary schools.
The Commission has also planned to train 116,024 high school teachers in December this year. TSC says the teachers will be trained in preparation for Grade nine class.
Its not clear whether the training will happen. This is after the government move to slash TSC allocation of sh 1.02 billion which it receives annually for training teachers on the new curriculum.
Staffing has been a perennial milestone around TSC’s neck with Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia revealing that the service has a deficit of 114,581 teachers across training colleges, special needs education, curriculum support and primary and secondary schools.
Below are compulsory and optional subjects being offered in junior secondary i.e Grade 7, 8 and 9.
COMPULSORY SUBJECTS
1. English
2. Kiswahili or Kenyan Sign Language for learners who are deaf
3. Mathematics
4. Integrated Science
5. Health Education
6. Pre-Technical and Pre-Career Education
7. Social Studies
8. Religious Education – learners choose one of the following:
a) Christian Religious Education
b) Islamic Religious Education
c) Hindu Religious Education
9. Business Studies
10. Agriculture
11. Life Skills Education
12. Sports and Physical Education
OPTIONAL SUBJECTS (Minimum 1, Maximum 2)
1. Visual Arts
2. Performing Arts
3. Home Science
4. Computer Science
5. Foreign Languages:
6. German
7. French
8. Mandarin
9. Arabic
10. Indigenous Languages
11. Kenyan Sign Language