Grade 6 Learners To Be Placed In Day Junior Secondary Near Their Residential Places ( Homes): Emerging Trends in CBC.
The ministry of education has revealed that learners transitioning to Grade Seven in January will be compelled to be purely day scholars under the (CBC) Competency-based Curriculum. It is now clear that Grade 6 learners will transition to junior secondary school at Grade seven in January after sitting their final exam in primary later in the year (November)
The State department supervising the implementation of CBC said that the learners will be posted to junior high school based on proximity to their former primary school, their subject selection, and performance in primary school. Consequently, the government seems not to have any other choice other than open up boarding schools today for scholars to host junior Secondary.
Ruth Mugambi, the technical advisor to the principal secretary on CBC matters quipped that” Posting of learners to junior high will be informed by the capability of parents to transport a child to the school they have chosen”.
The CS Prof. George Magoha recently clarified that junior Secondary schools will be offered in both boarding and day secondary schools across the country. He also added that many primary schools will host junior secondary school come January next year(2023)
“The ministry has identified 1,500 primary schools that will host junior secondary school because they have adequate learning and teaching facilities and land for physical expansion”, CS Magoha said in a statement.
This statement notifies the stakeholders of the fact that learners will attend their local neighboring schools instead of having to scramble for limited spaces at ley schools. For this to materialize the government is constructing 10,000 classrooms in schools across the country for eight billion this is even though the second phase of construction has stalled with contractors citing the extreme cost of building materials. This is resulting from the ever-increasing cost of building materials following the hiked price of fuel and other petroleum products. They say that the amount allocated and used to build classrooms in the 1st phase cannot be applied in the 2nd phase due to the high cost of building materials.
The stakeholders should know that CBC has divided elementary education into Pre-Primary and Primary Education taking two and six years respectively. Junior secondary commences from Grade Seven up to Grade Nine.
Grade six learners will sit for Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KAPSEA) in November before transiting to Grade Seven
The KAPSEA national examination will replace the outdated Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE)
CORE SUBJECTS OFFERED IN GRADE SEVEN
- English
- Kiswahili or Kenyan Sign Language for learners who are deaf
- Mathematics
- Integrated Science
- Health Education
- Pre-Technical and Pre-Career
- Social Studies
- Religious Education-Learners choose one of the following:
-Christian Religious Education
-Islamic Religious Education
-Hindu Religious Education
- Business studies 1
- Agriculture
- Life Skills Education
- Sports and Physical Education
OPTIONAL SUBJECTS ( MINIMUM1, MAXIMUM 2)
- Visual Arts
- Performing Arts
- Home science
- Computer Science
- Foreign Language
-German
-French
-Mandrin
-Arabic
-Indigenous Languages
-Kenyan Sign Language
It is important to note that the government through the ministry of education requires that secondary schools offer at least three optional subjects. It is this selection of optional subjects that will be used to determine which secondary school a child will be posted to. The junior secondary school will be domiciled in existing secondary schools as opposed to the primary schools, where the learners will be taught by secondary school teachers.
Parents and the public, in general, have been reassured that everything CBC will go according to the script because the government according to the government’s spokesperson( Cyrus Oguna) had seriously considered every aspect of the CBC thus expressing optimism!