JUNIOR SECONDARY HEADACHE EXPLAINED.

By Mwalimu Amunga Akhanyalabandu 

1) staffing. For Junior secondary to have enough Diploma and Degree teachers; TSC should hire 32,200× 7 teachers per school which translates to 225,400 teachers in three years. 

The wage bill will be 127.4 B. Per year.

Wisdom will dictate that  it would have been cheaper for JSS to be hosted in secondary  schools than in primary schools.

2) Most sec schools including the one I am the BOM CHAIR had constructed JSS classes and Dorms. 

Hence they had prepared for JSS. Others had divided their schools into JSS and SSS. Sec schools have labs Workshops Theaters and tuition  rooms for JSS, 8.4.4 and SSS.

COMPARED to primary Primary schools most are empty shells. They lack play grounds.Science and comp Labs .

Workshops.

Libraries .

ICT centres .

Theatres .

Lecture halls.

It's foolhardy someone to think that Junior secondary schools learners shall be moving daily from primary  schools to nearby sec school for science practicals. Confusion. 

 This is practically impossible.( If they go there whose chemicals and apparatus will they use  and on whose votehead.)

Shocking In some primary schools  Boys and Girls sit on common bench desks, No chairs , No desks. In some pupils sit on the floor.

Public primary schools are seriously understaffed.  In most rural schools there are less than  5 TSC teachers including the headteacher.

To fully impliment the curriculum the boards hire form 4 leavers to help. Such a school now needs 10 TSC teachers to operationalize JSS.

5) The Govt must  move with speed and put up JSS 3 labs , Workshop theatres for JSS in each primary school.

If one lab costs 5-10 M to construct and equip Ruto govt needs (32,200 sc × 5M×3= 483 B to 1 trillion to built enough labs in all primary schools.

The govt also needs another 300 B to put up workshops and buy enough land for play grounds. 

IF the presidential task force on Education FEARED INCREASING JSS CAPITATION  TO 22 K Per student  and DECIDED TO RETAIN JSS in primary surely the cost of capitation is far less than the above costs for labs Workshops and theatres. Total CAPITATION could have been about 22B per year. 

Sound advise would be that we let pupils proceed to near by Sec schools and be given 22 thousand as capitation to help raise up more facilities for them.  Also the 22 k per child  can be used to hire enough teachers for them by the Boms.

BOms shall strive to ensure CBC succeeds in their respective schools.

Also BOms in sec  schs are well established and Bom members can team up to manouvre through the success of CBC. 

It's psychologically immoral for  pupils to learn in one school for 11 yrs. Framers of the curriculum envisaged change of school after every 7  or 6 yrs. It's a source of learner synergy.

 

 *The initial idea of adding CBC pupils 1 year in primary was good so that JSS is divided into two 1 yr - Gd7 in primary and Gd8,9,10,11,12 in secondary was actually the best.* 

Add them 1 yr in primary sch. due to age and so that they proceed to sec schools of their choice. Also to utilize the classes left in primary school.

 

Prof magoha had a point. 

#Amunga