The Ministry of Education will start inspecting, for compliance, classrooms built by private schools to accommodate junior secondary school learners from June 1.
The classrooms are expected to augment those being constructed by the government in preparation for the expected surge in enrolment as learners under the competency-based curriculum (CBC) transition to junior secondary in January.
“Private schools are already building CBC classrooms. We’re going to inspect them from the first of next month. We shall do that for about two weeks across the country so that, by the time we give you the final report on public classrooms, we shall also be telling you that we have inspected and confirmed the number of classrooms in private institutions,” Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha said at the weekend.
He spoke while inspecting the construction of a classroom at Merishaw School, a private institution in Isinya, Kajiado County. Inspectors will focus on compliance with Ministry of Education health and safety guidelines.
The ministry has clarified that junior secondary will be domiciled in secondary schools. It has, however, encouraged private primary schools that have capacity to host junior secondary wings to accommodate some of the students. The learners under such arrangements will be taught by secondary school teachers. Private secondary schools have an enrolment of 203,448 according to latest data from the ministry.
Private schools wishing to establish secondary school sections are required to re-register with the ministry. Under the CBC, primary school will go up to Grade Six, meaning that private schools that do not take up junior secondary stand to lose business.
Junior secondary will comprise Grades Seven, Eight and Nine, after which learners will transit to senior secondary for Grade 10, 11 and 12. The time at university level has also been reduced from four to three years.
“We are reviewing our spaces and the curriculum, with the academic and operations teams working hand-in-hand to ensure our readiness,” said Katya Nyangi, the communications director at Makini Schools, Nairobi.
The 1.25 million learners in Grade Six will sit their Kenya Primary Education Assessment which will replace the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education in November, with 1,320,395 learners under the 8-4-4 also joining Form One at the same time.
This is expected to push enrolment in secondary schools from 4,381,701 to 6,029,168. The double intake will be repeated in 2024 when the last class of the 8-4-4 exits primary school.
“The anticipated enrolment increase will also require expansion of laboratories, libraries, wash facilities and other educational related resources. Effective transition, therefore, calls for nationwide and local context-specific planning to ensure that all learners are equitably placed,” a report by a task force on CBC implementation reads.
The government targeted to build 10,000 classrooms by end of July but phase one, which was to be completed in March before the beginning of national examinations, remains incomplete. The plan was to build 6,497 classrooms in phase one. The CS put the completion rate at 96 per cent.
Prof Magoha also announced that the second phase will start next month. Some contractors have complained that the Sh788,000 budget per classrooms is inadequate to maintain the standards expected by the ministry. However, the CS has ruled out the possibility of increasing the amount.
Last week, Prof Magoha also launched the World Bank-funded Secondary Education Quality Improvement Project (Seqip) that will fund infrastructure programmes in schools in 30 counties at the cost of Sh22.8 billion.
The project was put on hold in 2019 by President Kenyatta after it was marred by corruption that attracted the attention of the global financier, who demanded a fresh procurement process.
