Teachers of Junior Secondary Schools in Nyeri County have joined their counterparts in different parts of the country in their calls to have Junior Secondary Schools operate as independent institutions.
Speaking during a press briefing in Nyeri town on Sunday, the teachers said that Junior Schools, which marked the third level of education under the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) and which cover Grades 7-9, should be viewed as autonomous entities.
They are now calling on the government to immediately establish an independent administrative structure which will be responsible for supporting the Junior Schools to operate as stand-alone institutions, separate from Primary School where they are currently domiciled.
“Some people think that we want to move from the Primary School section to the Senior School section and that is not the case. What we are saying is, even if we remain in these schools, Junior School must be a stand-alone entity,” stated Kimathi Peter, the Interim Chairman of the Nyeri Junior Secondary Teachers Association.
Kimathi also argued that the independent administrative structure would be important for effective implementation of CBC by allowing the institutions to develop programmes that are tailored to support the needs of learners.
He noted that despite maintaining separate bank accounts and having separate Boards of Management, Junior Schools were at the mercy of the heads of the respective primary schools to fund activities in Junior School.
“We understand and know one thing; that Junior School has a different capitation account from that of the primary. So there is no way they should be combined because when they are combined it is us teachers who suffer. It is three years down the line and some schools have no laboratories and some have no computers. You go asking for an apparatus and you are told there is no money,” complained Kimathi.
“How do they expect us to teach these practicals? How can you improvise a microscope?” he posed.
“Because of that, we say that resources should be ring-fenced for Junior School and Junior School only,” he added.
Kimathi also called on the Teachers Service Commission to deploy additional teachers and to employ the intern teachers on permanent and pensionable terms.
He said that teachers in Junior Schools were overwhelmed owing to the unfair distribution of workload which is threatening to negatively affect curriculum delivery.
“The Primary School teachers are not helping us in those classes. Three years down the line, we have 2-3 teachers per stream. The teachers are supposed to handle 123 lessons per week and remember we have completely new learning areas. These teachers are occupied from morning to evening,” he said.
“We want additional teachers and after Junior School is separated from primary school then this government should make a significant effort to recruit and retain qualified teachers to ensure that every junior school is adequately staffed to meet the specialised needs of the curriculum,” he added.
Angela Mumbi, a tutor and a member of the Nyeri Junior Secondary Teachers Association, took issue with the government for allowing Junior School learners to be exposed to commercial exams.
She said that in addition to being expensive for the parents, the learners were being denied ample time to learn as their teachers are forced to spend more time marking the exams and submitting the results for sub-county rankings.
Ms Mumbi said that since the government had retooled the Junior School teachers on the Competency Based Education, class teachers should be allowed to set the opener and midterm examinations.
Additionally, Ms Mumbi proposed that the School Based Assessments served as an end-of-term exam since administering and marking four exams in one term is untenable and hinders learning.
“We have the Competency Based Assessment which is being killed by the commercial exams. The administration has refused to bring on board the CBE as they are still exposing the learners to these external examinations. We want to be allowed to practise what we have been retooled for by being allowed to test our own learners. We want to set our opener exam and midterm exams and they can set the end-of-term examination,” she said.
While backing their calls, the Nyeri Branch Executive Secretary for Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers Francis Wanjohi urged the government to move with speed and address the plight of the Junior School teachers.
He said that viewing Junior School as an independent tier of learning would support the acquisition of quality education by the learners.
“We urge the government to consider the quality of education and not just quantity for the sake of the learners. Competency Based Education cannot be implemented if these issues that are being raised by these teachers are not urgently addressed. As things stand, the Junior School teachers are facing a lot of challenges in their work stations and it is our hope that the government will listen to them and honour their demands,” said Wanjohi.
By Wangari Mwangi
