The first group of junior secondary school (JSS) teachers said that since the start of the 2023 academic year, they had not yet received their three-month pay, suggesting a crisis in the competency-based curriculum (CBC) implementation.
As the first term drew to a conclusion, representatives from the education community called the Ministry of Education to get them involved.
Some detractors said that the phase still faced numerous obstacles for its proper implementation despite the Teachers Service Commission’s (TSC) absorption of 36,000 tutors into the initiative to address the shortage.
Education specialist Ken Echesa claims that the 36,000 teachers were not only dispatched to JSS but also to primary and high schools, rendering their presence of little value.
He broke down the situation and pointed out that although Grades 7 and 8 were supposed to be taught 14 units, most schools only had two tutors on staff.
“In JSS, we have about 14 learning areas and high school teachers are trained to teach 2 subjects. About 70 percent of teachers deployed were humanity who basically teach history and religion, Geography and Kiswahili.
“These tutors are not in a position to teach integrated science that is Chemistry, Physics and Biology. This tells you that most of our teachers have gone a full term without introducing students to integrated sciences,” he stated.
The problem started after a statement from the Ministry of Education on April 14, 2023, claimed that money for JSS’s Free Secondary Education (FSE) had been released.
The Principal Secretary, State Department for Basic Education, was given instructions to have all heads of institutions acknowledge receiving funding by sending formal school receipts for both tuition and operation accounts to her.
An allotment of cash that has been fully signed by each student will also be given to the county director of education through the subcounty director of education.
The grant program would be suspended for schools that did not acknowledge the funds within two weeks.
