The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) will suffer a setback as the teacher training budget on Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) is earmarked for slashing.
This is according to President William Ruto’s move to resuscitate the economy by ordering the National Treasury to cut Sh300 billion from the current Budget.
In his inaugural address to Parliament, the Head of State said the re-organisation of the Budget would reduce the country’s spending pressure.
The National Treasury scheduled a budget restructuring meeting for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) which started yesterday till 21st October 2022 with TSC being among the MDAs meeting the Treasury team for review.
TSC will lose at least sh 1.02 billion which it receives annually for training teachers on the new curriculum.
The Commission will also lose sh 34 million which it uses each year in contracting various professional services following the budget cut plans.
Its a blow to the Commission which has planned to train teachers in December this year. TSC has planned to train a total of 116,024 high school teachers in preparation for junior secondary Grade Nine class.
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.
Junior secondary involves Grade Seven, Eight and Nine. Currently the first cohorts under the Competency Based Curriculum are in Grade Six.
The curriculum designs for the junior secondary classes are ready according to Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD).
According to outgoing Education CS George Magoha, teachers have been trained to roll out CBC and the task that remains will be accomplished by the this government after more than 10 million children were enrolled in the curriculum.
The teachers were planned to be trained on the following compulsory and optional subjects offered in junior secondary classes.
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