Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET ) has urged the government to better accommodate the interests of Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) in existing secondary schools.
During an Annual General Meeting for teachers from Elgeyo Marakwet at Sambirir Secondary School, KUPPET National Tertiary Secretary Sammy Chelang’a stated that secondary school teachers are responsible for handling topics and subjects taught in JSS.
He added that most of the facilities required for teaching JSS students, like laboratories, swimming pools, and technological tools, are not available, especially in public primary schools, thus disadvantaging the students; hence, university-trained teachers being posted in JSS cannot handle the workload as they were not trained for the same.
Currently, a teacher with a bachelor’s degree is trained on two subjects only, but once posted to JSS, he or she is required to handle 14 subjects cutting across sciences and humanities, for which they were not trained. For instance, “We have teachers who, for example, are trained in Geography/Kiswahili, you find such teachers being required to teach 14 subjects, including sciences, which they are not trained in,” he lamented.
Chelang’a said, as major stakeholders and education experts, they were not happy with the implementation of the JSS curriculum, saying children were getting a raw deal.
He also called on the government to absorb teachers on internships, saying it was unfair to the teachers to be employed for only one year with a rider that they are not liable to be hired again.
By Alice Wanjiru
