The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has started fresh data collection exercise to ascertain the right number of primary headteachers with degree.
In an excel sheet the Commission want the school heads to state their highest level of education (P1, DEGREE, MASTERS) among other details.
TSC is in the process to implement the recommendations of the education taskforce that want nursery, primary and junior school to be merged and managed by a Principal.
The reform team want the three levels of education to be merged into one unit and named Comprehensive school and managed by a Principal who must be a graduate.
The principal will be assisted by teachers who will head nursery, primary and junior schools and they will be referred to as deputy principals.
The Principal and his deputies must be graduate teachers holding at least a bachelors degree in education.
Currently majority of primary school headteachers are P1 teachers lacking degree but a good number having diplomas.
Primary headteachers with junior secondary domiciled in their schools were also deployed to act as principals for one year.
TSC did not look at the headteachers qualification during promotion, one was issued with deployment letter to JSS provided he/she had Grade 7 domiciled at the school.
Under the current guidelines, the headteachers are to head the JSS for an interim period that lapses on December 30, 2023.
However TSC has a whole year to implement the new proposed changes by the education reform team.
There are more than 23,000 public primary schools in Kenya, most approved by the Ministry of Education to host JSS.
TSC and the ministry will be mandated to come up with guidelines on senior teachers who will work under the Principal.
Current headteachers who will not qualify for headship of the comprehensive schools will be demoted and are expected to be given lesser roles.
They will, therefore, lose control of school operations and funds.
Some schools have been operating without substantive heads as the commission failed to attract applicants for the administrative positions.
The head of the comprehensive school will be the accounting officer of all the sections under it.
Equally to change is the composition of the school Board of Management (BOM).
For now, the JSSs are managed by an interim sub-committee drawn from the primary school BoM.
The Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER) also proposes that members of the BoM not exceed nine or 10. It says the current boards are bloated.
In another proposal, the heads of the comprehensive and senior secondary schools will be agents of the Ministry of Education and not the TSC.