National Parents’ Association Calls for Abolishment of Boarding School
The National Parents’ Association (NPA) has called for boarding schools to be abolished and services offered in private schools.
The NPA wants a law enacted to ban the decision of some schools to force learners who are below average or average to repeat classes.
This was revealed through a presentation to the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER) where the NPA voiced their support for the highly controversial Competence-Based Curriculum (CBC).
However, they asked the task force to make some changes to the system.
The association also added that the task force should recommend renaming the junior secondary school level to upper primary.
In the view of the NPA’s Secretary-General Eskimos Kobia, they opposed the compulsory directive of some public schools had to have boarding schools.
Kobia said that the current structure of the CBC should be changed to substitute junior secondary with upper primary school.
“All boarding facilities should be left to be managed by a private entity or individuals and a policy needs to be put in place to make boarding not compulsory in schools.
“We are opposing that the structure of education from grade 1 to 6 be renamed as lower primary, while from grade 7 to grade 9 is to be renamed as upper primary,” he said.
Further, the NPA said that the CBC should not be amended and the government should create a vote-head for CBC teaching and learning materials under the Free Primary Education (FPE) capitation grant.
The association also put forward a suggestion that the examinations for grade 6 would then be called Kenya Lower Primary Examination (KLPE) and those of Grade 9 be called Kenya Upper Primary Examination (KUPE).
Regarding lost certificates, Kobia said that the current policy of denying students an opportunity to replace their lost documents should be changed.
He also said that parents want the KNEC Act to be amended to allow candidates who fail their national examinations to be given an opportunity to resit for the examinations within three months.
Kobia urged the government to recruit 7,500 quality assurance and standard officers and assign 5 to every ward.
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