Using data to drive decision-making in education is key
Grade 7 learners at Ilmarba Junior Secondary School during a lesson in class on September 21, 2023.
What you need to know:
- Ministry of Education has revealed exciting and laudable statistics about the government’s efforts to fund the junior secondary schools.
- It has employed 76,928 teachers in two years, is in the process of building 18,000 classrooms and has provided books worth Sh51 billion since 2019.
The English people describe a situation in which business people or senior public servants worldwide sometimes provide exciting information about a project but conceal the essential ones as a “bikini method of exposure” in comparison to women who may occasionally put on bikini dresses that expose the exciting parts of their bodies, but conceal the essential private ones.
Take the Ministry of Education, for example. It has revealed exciting and laudable statistics about the government’s efforts to fund the junior secondary schools (JSS) component of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC). It has employed 76,928 teachers in two years, is in the process of building 18,000 classrooms and has provided books worth Sh51 billion since 2019.
This is, undoubtedly, the single largest project in the education sector undertaken in so short a time since independence and is exciting.
However, the ministry has concealed the essential statistics that an untrained mind may not decipher. First, slightly over 19,000 public primary schools were allowed to host JSS. If each school were allocated one classroom, 1,000 schools would not benefit from this funding. And would a seven-stream JSS school appreciate when allocated only one classroom? What is the criteria for allocating these classrooms?
Secondly, the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER) recommended that each JSS class have 45 students. Working on about one million JSS students in public schools means the government should build at least 22,000 classrooms.
Under-enrolment
In addition, schools in arid and semi-arid lands hardly have more than 25 students per class in schools that cannot be merged or closed on account of under-enrolment. My estimation is that about 30,000 classrooms would soon have to be built to meet this demand, especially knowing that another 4,000 public primary schools not allowed to host JSS are expected to progressively qualify.
Thirdly, the PWPER recommended that 60 per cent of CBC university students enrol for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (Stem) courses. This logically means JSS students must be exposed to science teaching in a laboratory setup to be confident and excited to take the Stem pathway at Grade 10 in 2026. The ministry conveniently concealed how many Grade 8 students have been exposed to science kits let alone laboratories, to enable them to make informed choices on their careers in the next few months.
Under these circumstances will the 60 per cent target be achievable or the bulk of such students would be sourced from private schools? What will this imply on equity considerations on provision and access to science courses in higher education?
Lastly, the Teacher Service Commission has not made public the staffing norms at both JSS and multiple pathway senior schools that will provide the benchmark upon which they can be evaluated as they continue employing teachers.
Through the National Education Sector Strategic Plan 2023–27, the ministry vowed to “make data-driven decision-making to inform policies, track progress and make evidence-based decisions.” To this extent, it is expected that it lives to its plans. It has to abandon the bikini dress exposure method of releasing data and information.
The writer is an education expert/ former Secretary at TSC ([email protected], @Bsogomo)
