- Advertisement -
BBI Report proposes Key changes in TSC Teachers’ Hiring Process, form one admissions
- Advertisement -
This is what the just unveiled BBI report has in store for teachers, learners in Kenya
Admission rules governing the admission of Kenyan learners to boarding schools may change in new proposals that dictate to have only half of the learners emanating from their home county.
This, therefore, means that the rest of the learners in boarding schools should be admitted from the other, foreign counties to address the ugly ethnic antagonism and competition currently evidenced in the sector.
The Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) report released yesterday also proposes that less than half of the teachers deployed by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to boarding schools should be drawn from other counties.
“Ensure that secondary boarding schools that are publicly funded have representation from different counties amounting to at least 50 percent of the student body. The Ministry of Education should develop a policy to guide this requirement. This recommendation should also apply to teachers,” reads the report in part.
BBI Proposals on form one admission
The report also proposes that pre-selection of students to all the Special Needs Educational centers including Starehe Boys Centre, Starehe Girls, Moi Forces Academy (in Nairobi and Lanet), Utumishi Boys Academy, and Moi Tea Girls be done separately.
Currently, admission to national government schools is purely based on merit, equity, and candidates’ choice of schools subject to the availability of slots in particular schools.
The selection of students to the second tier of schools, extra-county on the other hand is based on a 20:40:40 ratio, usually spread across the host sub-county, the host county, and other counties respectively.
The available slots in the third tier of schools-county are shared out between the sub-counties on a 20:80 ratio, distributed across the host sub-county, and the other sub-counties respectively.
BBI Proposes uniform criteria for all learners
These criteria apply to all candidates regardless of whether they took their Kenya Certificate of Primary Education, KCPE in private or public schools.
- Advertisement -
The BBI report also proposes that MOE adopts clear policy guidelines that discourage local recruitment and staffing of teachers, depending on the circumstances.
BBI on TSC Delocalization Policy
TSC delocalisation policy has been divisive, with unions protesting its implementation.
Teachers’ unions have argued that the process separates families and sends aged and sickly teachers far from their families, thus frustrating provision of quality education.
In its report, the BBI taskforce noted that ethnic antagonism and competition were a major threat to Kenya’s success and to the very continuity of the nation.
“To strengthen social ties and promote unity among all the communities, stakeholders recommended that the Ministry of Education review the curricula to introduce and integrate teaching of national unity, character, and cohesion to learners during their formative or early years,” says the report.
The report also recommends the review of policies in the education sector that promote social integration, especially in regard to admission to schools and institutions of higher learning.
“Kenyans agreed with the BBI report that deliberate efforts should be made to ensure a national outlook in the student and staff population in every school,” it says.
The report also proposes that programmes be put in place for cultural exchange and integration between different schools so that learners can grow to appreciate the different cultures and dynamics in Kenya.
Cultural diversity
The report proposes that school curricula feature compulsory components on history, cultural diversity, knowledge of major religions, including traditional ones, and the relationship between the Constitution and our cultures/religions.
“The Ministry of Education and TSC, in consultation with stakeholders such as parents and teachers’ associations, the private schools alliance, churches and other stakeholders in the education sector, should revise the school curricula to include cultural diversity,” reads the report.
It also proposes that the capacity of teachers be built to reorient them to the new programme.
On fighting corruption, the report proposes that education curricula, from the earliest to the most advanced levels, include ethics and civic components as a prerequisite for graduation. “The Ministry of Education and the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development to introduce ethics and civic components in the education curricula,” it says.
It says the government is not doing enough to promote technical vocational education training and wants emphasis put on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics subjects among young people for Kenya’s industrial growth.
- Advertisement -