The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is planning to train more than 60,000 high school teachers on the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) by April 2023.
This is after the Commission trained 228,000 of their primary school counterparts.
The Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) has also revealed that designing the syllabus for grades one to ten has also been completed.
According to the Cabinet Secretary for Education Prof George Magoha, teachers who will be charged for Grade Seven of the CBC are set to undergo a ten-month training program for teachers.
This is happening amid worries over how the double intake of both Grade 7 and Eight will happen as the Pioneer Grade Seven learners will set the tone for the CBC in junior secondary school.
With Junior secondary school looming, TSC directed that thousands of primary school teachers who graduated with a degree in junior secondary option but did not attain a C plain in KCSE will not be employed.
According to the Commission, having a degree will not matter if the individual will not have attained a C+ in their KCSE. Therefore primary school teachers (P1 teachers) who do not meet this criterion will not be promoted into junior secondary.
The TSC director of staffing Antonia Lentojoni informed headteachers in Mombasa that while the qualification requirement did not auger well with teachers, it would actually improve standards.
She revealed that the reason the Commission raised the promotion criteria was to improve the quality in response to societal challenges.
“TSC raised the entry points of teaching in the country to have the right people offering quality education to our children,” she revealed.
This happen even though the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Collins Oyuu suggested that teachers in primary schools with Degrees should be allowed to teach Grades Seven and Eight of Junior Secondary School.
According to Antonia, only teachers with the right academic qualifications will be allowed to teach in schools.
“These are the people with the ability to give quality education to our children,” she added.