School heads meeting begins tomorrow in Mombasa

Secondary school principals will from Monday hold their annual conference in Mombasa to discuss how the institutions are preparing to host junior secondary under the competence based curriculum.

They will also deliberate on the financial sustainability of the institutions ahead of school reopening on April 25 and the joining of Form Ones from May 3.

Next week, the Ministry of Education is also expected to release 2021 KCSE exam results.

This will be the first physical meeting the heads will be holding since the outbreak of Covid-19 in March 2020.

The heads will further discuss how to continue keeping schools safer from Covid-19; the use of technology in schools; improving performance; mental health of principals and teachers; students’ indiscipline and parental engagement.

The meeting, which is scheduled to end on Friday, will also bring together stakeholders in the sector, among them ministry officials, Teachers Service Commission (TSC) officials, unions and officials from parents’ associations.

Competency Based Curriculum

The Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association (Kessha) chairman Kahi Indimuli said the conference is critical as it will help principals discuss the implementation of the competency based curriculum (CBC) in secondary schools.

“As the Ministry of Education plans to roll out the CBC in secondary schools, it is prudent for us to meet and discuss as heads of institutions how we are preparing to host Grade Seven – the junior secondary pioneer class,” he said.

Some 1.5 million learners are currently in Grade Five and will be transiting to Grade Six in May.

The learners are expected to sit for their national examinations in November and join junior secondary school in January next year.

Mr Indimuli said that ahead of the roll-out, principals have been preparing their schools to host the learners.

“For the first time, schools will have an extra class and therefore apart from the 10,000 classrooms currently being constructed by the national government, schools are also constructing their own to supplement what the government is doing,” said Mr Indimuli.

TSC boss Nancy Macharia said 60,000 secondary school teachers will be trained on the CBC ahead of the junior secondary roll-out.

“The target group for training will be all teachers handling Grade 7, 8 and 9 from both public regular and special needs schools, and private schools,” said Ms Macharia.

The first level of training will target teachers of languages, pure sciences, applied sciences, mathematics, humanities and technical subjects.

The Kessha national conference was last held in 2019. Subsequent physical conferences were postponed in 2020 and 2021 due to Covid-19.

The conference is expected to bring together over 9,000 principals from across the country.

“We will also be discussing how schools should address congestion in dormitories and in classrooms,” said Mr Indimuli.

According to Mr Indimuli, most schools are currently in a financial crisis.

“Since March 2020 when the pandemic hit the country, schools have not been able to recover as parents are not consistent in paying fees while the majority have absconded their duty,” he said.

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