According to TSC Director of Quality Assurance and Registration Dr. Reuben Nthamburi, secondary school instructors who are registered by the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) and possess the necessary credentials will instruct Junior Secondary School (JSS).
Dr. Nthamburi stated that every secondary school in the nation needs to have a junior secondary school section while speaking to over 1,000 administrators and directors of private schools at a meeting conducted in Mombasa by the Kenya Private Schools Association (KPSA).
The purpose of the conference was to discuss how private school investors can aid in the adoption of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) for the upcoming school year.
However, Dr. Nthamburi also considered converting vacant elementary school classrooms into JSS.
According to him, anyone interested in teaching junior high or high school must either hold a diploma or a graduate degree and be prepared to teach in a secondary school.
He continued by saying that the CBC curriculum promotes and concentrates on quality and value addition to the learner, and that it was time for the education industry to protect the profession by only recruiting and hiring excellent tutors.
According to Dr. Nthamburi, the new CBC teacher education program will be divided into three sections.
The first option is a wide undergraduate or diploma program that culminates in a Bachelor’s degree or diploma and includes some educational units.
At the conclusion of undergraduate studies, the second phase involves student teaching in a public school.
“The new CBC teachers of the future will spend far more time getting practical experience in schools before they graduate. They will go through two terms of teaching practice unlike the past where they only went through one term,” Dr. Nthamburi clarified.
He added that all future teacher preparation programmes will demand general technological proficiency, including the development and the use of computer-based assessments.
“The Commission is making projections and preparing for the availability of teachers to handle both the junior and senior secondary school learning areas,” he said.
The TSC director stated that some subject areas, including pre-technical and pre-vocational education, life skills education, agriculture, and health education, will require special attention in order to have the necessary number of teachers. This is due to the lack of tutors needed to participate in the CBC curriculum effectively.
In order to apply some of the learning areas at the junior secondary school level, teachers will need to be sufficiently retooled. For instance, a biology or home science teacher could receive training to teach health education, while a physical education teacher could teach sports and physical education.
Dr. Nthamburi placed emphasis on raising the caliber of learning outcomes in order to guarantee students’ overall growth. Learning outcomes, according to him, decide one’s future.
“Improved learning outcomes help students learn more effectively and determines a child’s ability to identify career choices for life and at the end, ensures the achievement of national goals of education,” the director said.
He urged people interested in pursuing the Diploma in Secondary Teacher Education (DSTE) or the Diploma in Technical Teacher Education (DTTE) to have at least a C+ (plus) in two teaching topics in addition to a C+ (plus) in the KCSE or an equivalent grade in senior school.
Professionals in a given industry, like swimming instructors, will be permitted to instruct swimming classes as long as they are members of and registered with an official government organization.
The director of the Commission stated that they will place a strong emphasis on increasing teacher-learner interaction time so that teachers can effectively and promptly cover curriculum content and provide time for students to confer on difficult ideas.
Along with providing enough time to promote the holistic development of learners’ abilities through co-curriculum activities, the teaching-learning contact time will also help in ensuring that the monitoring of learning progress is carried out in an effective manner. Additionally, it will make it possible to prepare insightful reports on learners’ progress and conduct meaningful assessments of learning.
Furthermore, Dr. Nthamburi stated that TSC would control entry requirements for the teaching profession during pre-service training and ensure that only competent individuals were registered as teachers in preparation for recruitment into service.
According to him, TSC would offer the necessary assistance in the capacity development of teachers as well as technical support in the vetting of shortlisted instructors during recruiting for employment in private schools.
