All Grade 6 learners who completed their Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) on Wednesday will transition to junior secondary schools (JSS) domiciled in the existing primary schools.
Further, the just concluded national exam will not be used for placement to JSS but rather will be “used as an assessment to monitor learning progress and provide feedback to education sector players on areas that require intervention”.
The announcement has been made by President William Ruto after receiving a preliminary report of the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER).
The Ministry of Education (MoE) will provide the necessary guidelines on how the transition will be done.
The announcement is a relief to the 1,287,597 candidates registered for the KPSEA who went into the examination room unsure of their fate.
State House meeting
The President made the announcement after meeting members of the PWPER at State House in a meeting that started at 11.00am and ended at 1.00pm.
Some members who attended the meeting described it as “intense and productive” and that it is an issue that has been worrying Dr Ruto.
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“He had a question for each and every recommendation we made,” a member of the PWPER told Nation.Africa.
Another member revealed that the recommendations were made based on “logistical challenges rather than curriculum issues”.
President Ruto has also instructed the MoE, Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) and the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) “to work on modalities of fast-tracking retooling teachers to ensure the country has sufficient teachers who are compliant with CBC”.
To enhance the capacity of the teaching force, the President announced that the government will recruit 30,000 additional teachers by January.
Schools are scheduled to open on January 23, 2023.
However, it is not clear whether the teachers who will be recruited will be posted to primary or secondary schools.
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A member of the taskforce revealed that the TSC will be required to do an audit of primary school teachers who have a degree or diploma requirement (the minimum required to teach junior secondary school) in order to “back stop”.