The Ministry of Education has announced that over 55,000 learners out of 1.19 million learners have not yet reported to Junior Secondary School.
While appearing before the Senate Education Committee, Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu said the main challenge affecting the transition is the drought situation in some parts of the country.
“A total of 1,137,179 learners have so far transitioned to Junior Secondary School (JSS) across the country. This against a total of 1,193,122 learners who had been enrolled to Grade 6 translating to 95.3 percent transition rate,” CS Machogu said.
“Some counties have achieved 100 percent transition rate but there are others whose enrollment is low due to challenges such as drought among others.”
He however stated that the ministry is already undertaking a mop up exercise to ensure 100 percent transition
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“This is part of my assignment and we are monitoring this on a weekly basis. The County Commissioners, Deputy County Commissioners and all other officers are helping us on this and we have taken it upon ourselves to ensure that even the 55,900 who have not reported will report after the mop up which is targeting 100 percent transition,” said Machogu.
The CS refuted claims that there was no learning going on in JSS pointing out that the program has picked up well urging the parents and guardians not to be worried.
He further defended the construction of classrooms for junior secondary in secondary schools saying the move was informed by the recommendation of the Education Taskforce on enhancing access, relevance, transition, equity, and quality of effective curriculum reforms implementation.
“The taskforce determined that there was a shortage of 2,633 classrooms for 8.4.4 even before factoring in the junior secondary school requirements. The 100 percent transition from primary to secondary education over the years has created the need for more classrooms in secondary schools,” CS Machogu said.
Grade VII students began reporting to their junior secondary schools on January 30, 2023, marking the beginning of the second phase of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).
This followed government directive that Junior Secondary Schools be domiciled in the existing primary schools.
Junior Secondary Schools, especially public-run institutions, have however faced a myriad of challenges in the first term including inadequate facilities such as laboratories, with the Ministry of Education directing that they share facilities with neighboring learning institutions.