By Roy Hezron
The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) and Kenya Primary School Headteachers Association (KEPSHA) have now recommended that primary schools where the current Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) have been domiciled to be renamed as Comprehensive School.
In a joint statement dated March 9, 2023 and signed by both KNUT Secretary General Collins Oyuu and KEPSHA National Chairman Johnson Nzioka, the duo further suggested that the Comprehensive School should be managed by one Principal just like other best practices in the world.
“We strongly recommend that the Grade 1-9 should be known as Comprehensive School, and in this regard our schools hosting Grade 1-9 should be known as Comprehensive School for example, Upendo Comprehensive School. This School should have one Principal,” said Oyuu in the joint statement.
According to KNUT and KEPSHA, they have reached to the above recommendation after doing an extensive research and comparative analysis on the education structures from different countries, and sampled out those countries with education systems close to Kenyan Competence Based Curriculum (CBC) system.
The systems sampled include those in Finland, France, England and Wales, Canada, New Zealand, Denmark, Italy, Australia, India, South Korea, Serbia, Spain, Brazil, Egypt and Morocco.
They noted that after analyzing the sampled systems, they observed that Finland’s and Denmark’s Education System are similar to the one currently in Kenya where in Finland, Basic Education which adopts Comprehensive School includes Grade 1-9 and divided in 1-2, 3-6 and 7-9; while in Denmark, Danish Folkeskole Education covers the entire period of compulsory Education from Age 6 to 16 years.
They maintained that the primary school headteachers who are currently manning the JSS have the requisite qualifications to run the said Comprehensive School.
“Most of the Primary School Heads are degree and diploma holders and are in commensurate job groups which allow them to head the school from Grade 1-9. The Heads have been trained on the CBC, and they are also holders of Diploma in Education Management,” said Oyuu in the joint statement.
“It is therefore our submission that the Primary School Headteachers are fully equipped and have the managerial skills to head the Grade 1-9,” he added.
In the recently released Guidelines for Implementation of JSE released in January, 2023 by the Ministry of Education, the government through the ministry suggested to come up with plans that will ensure that learners will finish schooling in one place, without necessarily transitioning to other schools while advancing to different levels; through coming up with the so called Comprehensive School which will be like an ‘all-in one school’.
Through the Ministry of Education (MoE), the government suggested to in future re-align all the existing schools that is, from Pre-Primary up to Senior Secondary Schools (SSSs) into a Comprehensive School in order to implement a broad curriculum that allows for optimal utilization of resources across the levels.
According to the guidelines each level will offer age- appropriate content and grading for the learners, based on the curriculum prescribed, with the schools being managed by a common Board of Management (BoM) for the case of public schools; while for private schools it will be by BoM, Board of Directors or Board of Trustees.
The Management committees further be established and be mandated to manage various levels notably Pre-Primary, Primary (Grades 1-6), Junior Secondary (Grades 7-9) and Senior Secondary (Grades 10-12) with the School name reflecting all the four levels.
In addition, the guideline states that the Comprehensive School’s leadership shall develop a common 5 year Strategic Plan whose implementation will be monitored by the County Directors of Education (CDEs) and the Quality Assurance and Standard (QAS) Officers.
On primary teachers holding higher qualifications KNUT and KEPSHA maintained that they should be deployed to teach in JSS and that the requirement that teachers with only C+ to be deployed in the JSS should be reviewed.
“There are teachers with Technical skills to teach subjects like music and others who are currently in primary schools and they should teach in the JSS. KNUT and KEPSHA are encouraging these teachers to teach those grades and the issues of promotions negotiated by KNUT,” they said in the statement.
KNUT and KEPSHA have further recommended that the current JSS be treated as independent school which should be part of the current primary school running from grade 1 to 9, with KNUT calling for creation of one school board of management (BOM) mandated to run the whole school, with JSS issues being run by a sub-committee of the board just like as it is the case in the current establishment of the school boards.
“There should be only one board of management running the ‘school’ and JSS issues should be run by a Sub-Committee of the board just like we have other Sub-Committees like Curriculum. The board can be improved by adding more resourceful persons who will be members of the JSS Sub-Committee of the Board of management,” they said in the statement.
