The office of the County Education Director for Kiambu has revealed that it has assessed and given green light to 402 public and 412 private schools to host Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) in the county.
Additionally, about 1,000 private schools were further earmarked and found fit to host JSS, setting a strong base for the taking off of the JSS in the county.
Kiambu County Director of Education, Simon Wanjohi revealed this during the county’s 10th Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (KESSHA) conference in Mombasa, adding that the education sector in Kiambu County is strong and stable.
While speaking to Education Newspaper, Wanjohi revealed that his office, together with other stakeholders, have constantly been working on sensitizing parents on their role in JSS.
“The government has posted teachers and distributed textbooks to schools. Public schools have also received their capitation to help in the running of their operations,” stated the Director.
He said that he was pleased that schools in the county were in a stable status and that learning was progressing well including students’ unrests, especially in secondary schools, which has significantly reduced creating conducive room for learning and growth in the sector because stakeholders were taking their responsibilities well.
Wanjohi also said the government was actively playing its rightful role in ensuring JSS worked, through capacity building of Kiambu teachers where currently over 800 teachers were undergoing training on matters JSS, numerous others in the county having previously been trained on how to prepare schools’ development plans while Boards of Management (BoMs) trained on how to spend money allocated to them.
“Curriculum implementation in Kiambu County is going on well without a hitch. The schools’ BoMs are put in place, the co-curriculum activities are taking place without problems and most importantly, our schools are stable.” He said.
The KESSHA conference therefore, he said was meant for the secondary school heads to come together and have a professional discussion on emerging issues touching their schools and on the education sector.
The one-week summit was also meant to converse on matters around policies and for the school administrators to remind one another of the legal status of their work.
“This meeting is so significant in that it is here that we get to talk about the management systems put in place in schools, the schools’ rules and regulations, the welfare or the personal development of the teachers and also get to interact together.” He emphasized.
On the other hand, the director stated that as a county, they faced numerous challenges among them being the inadequate number of teachers in some schools and drugs and substance abuse in the county that was slowly finding its ways into schools.
He however encouraged the school heads to give their best when performing their functions and to also ensure proper implementation of the curriculum while at the same time promised as a ministry to support schools the best way possible.
By George Otieno
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