By Hilton Mwabili
Khadija Primary School in Mombasa sums up the farrago of confusion that characterizing public Junior Secondary Schools (JSSs) around the country.
In this school, defined by modern structures, is a sorry tale of 400 Junior Secondary School (JSS) learners who are forced to sit on the floor due to lack of furniture.
Defined by elegant state-of-the- art structures, the school which was funded by Kenya Primary and Secondary Education Programme in Poor Urban Areas of Kenya – a development initiative between the Government of Kenya and the Federal Republic of Germany under the German-Kenyan Financial Cooperation, qualified among the 11 public schools in Nyali sub county to host JSS.
Since its completion, the Ksh 325 million school has continued to attract impressive numbers of learners but with the ongoing transition to JSS continuing to expose the underlying pitfalls in the implementation of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC), it has emerged that lack of furniture is proving a daunting challenge in most schools.
Nyali Sub County Director of Education (SCDE) Maimuna Ahmed Omar confirmed that all the Grade Seven learners in Khadija Primary “have been sitting on the floor”.
“When the school was completed they had extra six classrooms which were unutilized… With the coming of JSS, the classes are now being used for Grade Seven but there is no furniture. All the learners are sitting on the floor. So if we can get a well-wisher to assist, it will be highly appreciated,” explained Omar in an interview.
In the school, JSS learners are easily noticeable not because of new uniforms they don, but because of patches of dust on their uniforms.
“We don’t have desks… we have been told to sit on the floor until desks arrive,” said one of the Grade Seven learners in the school.
A neighboring school, Kongowea Primary school has so far received over 300 Grade Seven learners who have been distributed in four JSS streams, each with an average of 75 students per class.
The school has so far been allocated five JSS teachers to handle the students.
“So far we have enrolled 300 students and more are coming. As you can see, parents are queuing to have their children enrolled. This has been the case since we started. Because of the large population around, public schools cannot accommodate the numbers of learners. Most of the learners are from local private schools and that is why we are being overwhelmed,” explained a teacher at the school.
According to Omar, out of 79 private schools in Nyali sub-county, less than 30 were approved to host Junior secondary. In light of the above, most of the learners from private schools are now flocking to public schools.
“Right now all the public schools hosting JSS are full. There is no space remaining,” explained the Director, adding that the sub-county has experienced 72 per cent transition so far.
Regarding textbooks, Omar said the first batch of textbooks arrived on Wednesday and were deposited at Khadija Primary school.
A spot check established that most schools had started receiving textbooks albeit in bits.
