Teachers Service Commission is in the process of equipping teachers with relevant knowledge in accordance with competency based curriculum. Sources in the commission have confirmed that soon TSC could lock out teachers with certificate qualification from public schools employment.
Educationupdates.co.ke understands that moving forward no teacher will be employed to public primary schools by TSC without a Diploma.
Director of Quality Assurance at the TSC, Reuben Nthamburi in June said this will enable teachers to take up implementation of CBC once employed.
Nthamburi said TSC assessment revealed that newly employed teachers who have not been trained on CBC find it hard to teach the new curriculum cohort.
It is also expected that teachers who will take the upgrade will stand a higher chance of securing employment with TSC as opposed to their counterparts who will not.
The current pool of teachers in public schools teaching CBC classes are of certificate qualification and undergo continuous retraining during holidays to be CBC compliant.
According to Nthamburi, the upgrade programme training is not similar to the disputed Teacher Professional Development recently rolled out.
He explained that the training is different from TPD in that it is intended to help unemployed teachers to meet the teaching requirements of CBC.
This will enable them to reach the Diploma in Primary Teacher Education level and be on the same level as DPTE graduates.
‘We want to do away with inequality. As teachers complete the upgrade programme, they will be at the diploma level, making their remunerations on par for diploma,” Nthamburi said.
It will cost between Sh65,000 and Sh68,000 for the upgrade programme in public teacher training colleges while private colleges will charge between Sh79,000 and Sh84,000.
The Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development was responsible for developing the curriculum design for the upgrade programme.
The upgrade will only focus on equipping the teachers with CBC skills since they have already acquired basic teaching pedagogies.
Machakos TTC, Thogoto TTC in Kiambu, Shanzu TTC in Mombasa, Egoji TTC in Meru, Baringo TTC and Migori TTC are set to offer the upgrade programme.
The Kenya National Union of Teachers secretary general Collins Oyuu on Friday supported the resolve to allow P1 teachers to upgrade to diploma since it will solve the college’s puzzle of being shut due to lack of enough students.
Oyuu further urged the government to partially finance the teachers upgrade programme since some of them graduated long time ago and have families, while some have minimal wages which can’t support the upgrade programme.
“Since a number are employed in some private and public schools earning very little money they would not be in a position to shoulder the training cost.
“We urge the government to give them some sponsorship and include them in Higher Education Loans Board programme,” Oyuu said.
The government suspended the training of primary teachers for almost two years in order to phase out P1 certificate courses in Teacher Training Colleges and allow development of a curriculum for the new diploma course.
The move was meant to replace P1 with diploma courses, to ensure teachers are trained in accordance with the CBC needs.
According to the CBC taskforce, Pre-Service Competency Based Teacher Education will provide the education sector with a valuable opportunity to train teachers on the CBC approach
TSC y????yyyy??? God is my witness you have done us more good than harm
You know what????there is no happy soul like desperate p1teachers,they smile all the way,very soon they shall join mijengo for survival, I guess they were very wise to choose this course and Never to benefit,your threats as TSC are high class,thanks TSC for giving us the best,you can even bann Private schools from employing us,do your best please becoz it leaves a well of happiness to us, God bless you,may you Never lack becoz you are a blessing to us