Mandate

And for teachers, the authority cited the declining number of students choosing teaching as a profession as basis for lowering the certificate training entry grade.

Parents and teachers have protested the move, with Teachers Service Commission (TSC) Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia cautioning students that they will not be registered if they train with low grades. The teachers’ employer has also questioned the authority of the KNQA to effect such changes, escalating the controversy. The TSC maintains that the mandate to lower training standards does not fall within the purview of KNQA and advanced its authority as an independent commission.

In a tough letter to KNQA director general Juma Mukhwana, TSC says the Authority is restricted to only “reviewing interrelatedness and linkages of the existing qualifications for national good”. “The Commission takes a serious view of the attempt by the Authority to arrogate itself the powers to review the standards of education and training of persons entering teaching service and proposing to lower the minimum entry requirements,” said Mrs Macharia in the letter dated September 25. But Mukhwana insisted that its only the Authority that is mandated in law to set minimum entry requirements for all teaching levels in the country. “We have done our work. Setting the minimum requirements. As long as the grades they are talking about fall within the minimum standards we are speaking the same language,” said Mukhwana.

Mandate

And for teachers, the authority cited the declining number of students choosing teaching as a profession as basis for lowering the certificate training entry grade.

Parents and teachers have protested the move, with Teachers Service Commission (TSC) Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia cautioning students that they will not be registered if they train with low grades. The teachers’ employer has also questioned the authority of the KNQA to effect such changes, escalating the controversy. The TSC maintains that the mandate to lower training standards does not fall within the purview of KNQA and advanced its authority as an independent commission.

In a tough letter to KNQA director general Juma Mukhwana, TSC says the Authority is restricted to only “reviewing interrelatedness and linkages of the existing qualifications for national good”. “The Commission takes a serious view of the attempt by the Authority to arrogate itself the powers to review the standards of education and training of persons entering teaching service and proposing to lower the minimum entry requirements,” said Mrs Macharia in the letter dated September 25. But Mukhwana insisted that its only the Authority that is mandated in law to set minimum entry requirements for all teaching levels in the country. “We have done our work. Setting the minimum requirements. As long as the grades they are talking about fall within the minimum standards we are speaking the same language,” said Mukhwana.