Ministry of Education has affirmed that plans are underway to ensure all secondary schools in the country accommodate Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) as learners prepare to transition from grade six to seven in January 2023 under the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC).
Speaking yesterday on the sidelines of the third Kenya Institute of Special Education (KISE) national conference in Nairobi ,Implementation of Curriculum Reforms Principal Secretary professor Fatuma Chege said this is part of the government strategy to ensure resource optimisation in implementation of CBC.
No secondary school will be in a primary school and if the primary school has excess infrastructure that can be transformed into a JSS, then the government is at liberty to establish a wing of JSS with its own management, own secondary school infrastructure that can grow from junior to senior. JSS being hosted in existing secondary schools is based on rationale of resource optimisation,” said Ps Chege.
An assessment by MoE revealed that some secondary schools already have excess classrooms and as such resources will be channelled towards other deserving learning institutions.
The expansion of infrastructure is underway and has excluded those with surplus facilities. We have schools that historically have had a deficit and children are crammed into one classroom, so those are priorities in expansion. Those that have enough classrooms but will need JSS in 2023 are also a priority,” she said.
Education Cabinet Secretary professor George Magoha recently announced that the national treasury had availed to the ministry of education Sh4 billion kick starting phase one of the competency based curriculum (CBC) school infrastructure development programme.
Together with additional Sh1.2 billion from the Ministry of Education infrastructure fund .The ministry is committed to construct 6,500 classrooms in 6,371 secondary schools across the country.
The move is expected to address the classroom deficit in public secondary schools in turn facilitating a smooth transition of CBC grade 6 learners to junior secondary in January 2023.
Speaking during this year’s Mashujaa day celebrations, President Uhuru Kenyatta had directed the National Treasury to avail Sh8.1 billion towards the construction of 10,000 classrooms in secondary school.
The programme will be implemented in two phases.
A multi-agency team comprising the: Ministry of Education, Interior and Coordination of National Government and other state agencies has already developed a road map of implementation of the project.
It is being implemented under the Kenya economic stimulus package, using local contractors within the vicinity of the secondary school to tap local skills and enhance economic opportunities.
Contractors had by November 12, been registered with the deputy county commissioner of the respective sub-counties at no costs,” read section of the statement.
Local contractors will; now bid for the construction of the classrooms in schools in the respective home counties as from November, 22,2021.
