CBC Students Faces Uncertain Future

The allocation of nearly Sh4 billion by the Ministry of Education to over 19,000 junior secondary school (JSS) institutions for infrastructural development, focusing on Grade 9 classrooms, deserves praise.

However, given the student population of almost 1.3 million, with an assumed class size of 50, a minimum of 26,000 classrooms is needed.

At an estimated average cost of Sh700,000 per classroom, Sh18.2 billion will have to be spent. It would be a great step forward if a similar sum could be released on a quarterly basis to facilitate this construction well before January 2025.

But teaching and learning is not about infrastructure alone. Teachers, teaching aids and equipment are equally essential. Unfortunately, as the year ends, the teachers employed for JSS are barely one or two for 14 subjects in a single stream—compared to about six in most private schools.

Primary schools traditionally never had laboratories and workshops, implying that JSS students have no exposure to science equipment at all.

If, as it now seems likely, the students spend three of six years studying integrated science subjects theoretically, then most of them will not qualify to take science-based courses at the university.

Yet the aim of the government is to have 60 per cent of the students do so, thus negating the original aim of introducing the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC).