For the first time in Kenya’s education system, form ones and Grade 6 learners will be beginning high school in January 2023, it is obvious that the Teachers Service Commission, TSC, will have to employ more teachers to handle that big number of students.
According to records from the ministry of education, about a 1.2million learners will join grade 7 under CBC in junior secondary school, and about the same number of pupils will be sitting their KCPE and will join form one.
With this number of students in form one and Grade 7 under the junior secondary school, there will be a serious crisis in secondary schools as the number of lessons will triple per teacher, this has made TSC move with speed to ensure at least 20,000 more interns will be hired to bridge that gap between the student-teacher that is already too wide.
The ministry of education still be faced with an acute shortage of classrooms because currently, the ministry has done about two classes in every secondary school to host junior secondary school Grade 7 pupils, bearing in mind that some schools admit students in more than ten streams of not less than 60 students that means two streams cannot be sufficient to cater for such high numbers
The lack of other facilities like dorms and laboratories will worsen as the number of students will double, education stakeholders, must reconsider the decision to domicile all the junior secondary schools in secondary schools as the problems of staffing and overstretching of facilities will definitely hit the schools seriously thus compromising the quality of learning.
Education stakeholders must rethink the decision to house all junior secondary schools in secondary schools as the issues of staffing and overstretching of facilities will undoubtedly hit the schools seriously and compromise the quality of learning as the lack of other facilities like dorms and laboratories will worsen as the number of students.
