TSC’s virtual lessons, ‘Yes’, a shared lesson plan and livestream, big ‘No’

On January 26, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) rolled out a virtual lesson plan allowing schools to share tutors. The model will see a number of schools within a certain area agree on the time to live-stream particular lessons and the learners will be logged in.

The pilot programme targets two principal schools—Alliance Girls High School and Machakos School—delivering the lessons to 10 other schools. At the onset, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and English will be thus live streamed. The two well-staffed national schools with better facilities than most of the rest will have their teachers share lessons with students in satellite schools across the counties of Isiolo, Kilifi, Bomet, Taita-Taveta, Makueni and Kisii.

In development, twin cities in different parts of the world mimic each other, forming a legal or social agreement, even though they are in two distinct geographical and political localities, for the purpose of promoting cultural and commercial ties. The general direction is similar but the nitty-gritty context-specific.

TSC’s chief executive officer, Ms Nancy Macharia, said the lessons will be interactive and collaborative through video and sound and learners will have a whole learning experience. I beg to differ.

This ‘big school’ mentality is wrong. It’s not the teachers in the big schools who are great in their teaching; it is the choice of pedigree learners who have excellent means of admission that are great. These learners are self-driven and -motivated and have a higher Intelligence Quotient (IQ). Given an outline, they will spin the wheel while the teacher supervises and guides them.

The big schools are sufficiently resourced by the national government and a strong alumni association. They will charge an extra fee to smoothen operations and nobody—including the high and mighty—will dare raise a finger because they will be looking for favours during Form One selection.

Neither self-directed nor motivated

On the flip-side are county and sub-county schools which admit learners with lower grades. The learners are neither self-directed nor motivated. Some have been hounded out of their home or village by the chief, in line with the government’s 100 per cent transition from primary to secondary school.

The schools are poorly planned and collect nothing beyond the Free Secondary Education grant from the national government. They are struggling to sustain a lunch programme because parents can’t pay, won’t pay.

In these rural schools, infrastructure is wanting. Schools suffer staffing inequality due to trained teacher preference of urban areas. They will most likely experience internet connection issues. Head teachers are, sometimes, commandeered by local leadership chasing tenders or other favours.

With all due respect, how do you put learners from such different contexts and abilities in the same class, use the same method, language, level of vocabulary and examples and move at the same speed and expect to disseminate knowledge?

Online learning could bridge the gap of knowledge dissemination if well executed and financed. The motivation behind this project is either to achieve an academic feat (such as publishing a journal paper) or secure donor funding. The other challenge is that this is a one-off donor-funded project that will crumble the moment the benefactor withdraws support. Will it be sustainable?

This pilot will fail flat on its face. TSC’s motivation for introducing this system is anything but not to help the learners. Look at the choice of the principal schools. Machakos was probably selected as a host just because its principal is the chairman Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association.

Technology cannot replace a teacher. Let lessons be prepared and recorded to be used off-line. That will bridge the internet connectivity gap. It will enable the physical teacher to give their class the human touch, explaining a point here and there, and customise the lesson by giving context-specific examples.

Dr Turuthi, a high school deputy principal, is an educational technology expert. [email protected].